The cause for the terrorists is to kill people, which is why I look down on them. The people celebrating Falwell's death don't really have a unified "cause," so I can't really say I agree or disagree with it. So I guess you're half right.
I don't see what's wrong with looking down on people's actions because of a disagreement with their cause, though. I look down on, say, neo-Nazis for that reason, and don't look down on Martin Luther King Jr. because I agree with his cause. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who thinks I'm wrong in doing this (except for a neo-nazi, of course).
Soooo......you're not listening (reading) then?
Because I have no problem with disagreeing with someone's cause. I have a problem with people who disagree with an action solely because of their disagreement with a cause. In other words, the ends justify the means, any means at all.
You're not representing my position correctly, though. I don't disagree with actions solely because of the cause of those behind them, and I'm certainly not someone who believes that the ends justify the means. Though I do think the reasons behind an action play a large part in determining whether it's worthy of condemnation or not, which is what I was trying to say in previous posts.
I'll try and rephrase my opinion here. I don't think it's fair to call the celebration of Falwell's death and the celebration of 9/11's deaths the same action. Yes, on a basic level, they're both celebrating the death of humans, but I think the details and context make them different enough that you can condemn one and not the other without being hypocritical.
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I'll try and rephrase my opinion here. I don't think it's fair to call the celebration of Falwell's death and the celebration of 9/11's deaths the same action. Yes, on a basic level, they're both celebrating the death of humans, but I think the details and context make them different enough that you can condemn one and not the other without being hypocritical.
Okay, make me understand. What is it about the context that makes it different? And don't say innocents, because that's a value call that doesn't work: You don't get to decide who's innocent and who isn't.
Oh, I forgot your side was right. If you felt ambushed because people disagreed with you, maybe debate and discourse isn't for you. Perhaps you'd be happier in an "agree with me or else" thread.
Cut the shit. I felt ambushed because in a thread for discussion people role their eyes and complain about ideas being laid out. That is what the thread is for. I'm not complaining about people disagreeing.
You feel ambushed because apparently in a thread designed to talk about whether the dead should be respected or not, people held the position that they should. You are wrong.
Oh yeah, the meta-argument not only was totally relevant to your position, but in fact proved it beyond the need to even acknowledge other possible viewpoints.
Yeah, the meta-argument.
Like in these twothreads. The only other two discussing the subject.
In which apparently Sentry felt ambushed by the stream of abuse he was exposed to. Scanning through both threads, we find the vitriole that assaulted him:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to miss him at all, but I tend to agree with Shinto. Besides, he's dead, where's the sport in it?
These are the only two posts critical of celebrating Falwell's death. The only two posts outside this thread.
Poor bastard. How could we be so cruel? Clearly the meta-discussion really was rough outside of this thread.
It's weird Shinto... I totally used to respect you here, but if that's honestly what you think I meant by ambushed, then I just feel kind of sorry for you.
Oh, and you said you felt ambushed first, shall I go take a few posts out of context to make you look like the colossal douche you're acting like?
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When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
I'll try and rephrase my opinion here. I don't think it's fair to call the celebration of Falwell's death and the celebration of 9/11's deaths the same action. Yes, on a basic level, they're both celebrating the death of humans, but I think the details and context make them different enough that you can condemn one and not the other without being hypocritical.
Okay, make me understand. What is it about the context that makes it different? And don't say innocents, because that's a value call that doesn't work: You don't get to decide who's innocent and who isn't.
I'm speaking for myself here, and not necessarily other people who were glad that Falwell died.
One difference is that Falwell died of old age or heart attack or whatever, whereas terrorist victims are murdered. I wouldn't have been happy if I turned on the news and learned that some angry secular person/homosexual/whatever murdered Falwell.
The other difference goes against your request to not mention innocence, but I still think it's worth saying. Falwell was one dead man, who (in my opinion) made the world a worse place by advocating oppression of gays and lesbians. The deaths of pretty much any terrorist attack number from a few to more than a hundred, and since I don't know anything about the victims, I'm just naturally going to assume that each and every one of them wasn't a terrible person who was doing his or her best to spread hatred and intolerance.
I'm speaking for myself here, and not necessarily other people who were glad that Falwell died.
One difference is that Falwell died of old age or heart attack or whatever, whereas terrorist victims are murdered. I wouldn't have been happy if I turned on the news and learned that some angry secular person/homosexual/whatever murdered Falwell.
The other difference goes against your request to not mention innocence, but I still think it's worth saying. Falwell was one dead man, who (in my opinion) made the world a worse place by advocating oppression of gays and lesbians. The deaths of pretty much any terrorist attack number from a few to more than a hundred, and since I don't know anything about the victims, I'm just naturally going to assume that each and every one of them wasn't a terrible person who was doing his or her best to spread hatred and intolerance.
Well, by assuming the best of the victims of 9/11 and the worst of Falwell, you make a judgment I don't think you have the authority to make. An old saying is, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Perhaps Falwell genuinely believed that what he was doing was making the world a better place. You don't get to decide that he was just a monster simply because you disagree with his beliefs.
I also don't agree with the idea that how someone dies determines whether or not it's okay to be glad that person is (those people are) dead. If the WTC had suffered a collapse because of an engineering fault instead of being flown into and the muslims danced in the street anyway, would you think that was okay? I highly doubt it.
Also, the US at large can be said to be making the world a worse place by the collective actions of its people and government. Which, by your logic, justifies the reaction to the WTC attack.
I'm speaking for myself here, and not necessarily other people who were glad that Falwell died.
One difference is that Falwell died of old age or heart attack or whatever, whereas terrorist victims are murdered. I wouldn't have been happy if I turned on the news and learned that some angry secular person/homosexual/whatever murdered Falwell.
The other difference goes against your request to not mention innocence, but I still think it's worth saying. Falwell was one dead man, who (in my opinion) made the world a worse place by advocating oppression of gays and lesbians. The deaths of pretty much any terrorist attack number from a few to more than a hundred, and since I don't know anything about the victims, I'm just naturally going to assume that each and every one of them wasn't a terrible person who was doing his or her best to spread hatred and intolerance.
Well, by assuming the best of the victims of 9/11 and the worst of Falwell, you make a judgment I don't think you have the authority to make. An old saying is, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Perhaps Falwell genuinely believed that what he was doing was making the world a better place. You don't get to decide that he was just a monster simply because you disagree with his beliefs.
I also don't agree with the idea that how someone dies determines whether or not it's okay to be glad that person is (those people are) dead. If the WTC had suffered a collapse because of an engineering fault instead of being flown into and the muslims danced in the street anyway, would you think that was okay? I highly doubt it.
Also, the US at large can be said to be making the world a worse place by the collective actions of its people and government. Which, by your logic, justifies the reaction to the WTC attack.
It is a safe assumption to make that the majority of the victims of the airplanes crashing did not actively and deliberately work to create political instability in the middle east. It is not a safe assumption to assume that Falwell didn't know his influence caused harm to large numbers of people regardless of whether or not they had done anything to warrant such, or that he pursued and selected his agendas by accident.
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It is a safe assumption to make that the majority of the victims of the airplanes crashing did not actively and deliberately work to create political instability in the middle east. It is not a safe assumption to assume that Falwell didn't know his influence caused harm to large numbers of people regardless of whether or not they had done anything to warrant such, or that he pursued and selected his agendas by accident.
Can you tell me that the economic policies of the US and other first world nations don't have a detrimental effect on many other nations in the world, including middle eastern nations? And that the people who worked in the WTC worked in support of these economic policies?
It is a safe assumption to make that the majority of the victims of the airplanes crashing did not actively and deliberately work to create political instability in the middle east. It is not a safe assumption to assume that Falwell didn't know his influence caused harm to large numbers of people regardless of whether or not they had done anything to warrant such, or that he pursued and selected his agendas by accident.
Can you tell me that the economic policies of the US and other first world nations don't have a detrimental effect on many other nations in the world, including middle eastern nations? And that the people who worked in the WTC worked in support of these economic policies?
I can say that it's safe to assume the majority of them did not actively and deliberately work to create political instability in the middle-east. What they did or did not unknowingly help do as a statistically insignificant part of a collective is not relevant to my claim.
Well, by assuming the best of the victims of 9/11 and the worst of Falwell, you make a judgment I don't think you have the authority to make. An old saying is, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Perhaps Falwell genuinely believed that what he was doing was making the world a better place. You don't get to decide that he was just a monster simply because you disagree with his beliefs.
Whether he believed that or not, I don't think any rational person would argue that he wasn't making the US worse than it is. I think your point here is that since whether a person is "good" or not is subjective, it's not okay to say "This guy dying is good, and these guys dying is bad." I acknowledge that Falwell being a terrible person is my opinion rather than an unarguable fact, but I'd say whether he made negative contributions to the world is pretty unarguable, and I don't think it's wrong to be glad that the source of those negative contributions is gone.
I also don't agree with the idea that how someone dies determines whether or not it's okay to be glad that person is (those people are) dead. If the WTC had suffered a collapse because of an engineering fault instead of being flown into and the muslims danced in the street anyway, would you think that was okay? I highly doubt it.
No, I would still condemn anyone who cheered at their deaths, because there's no reason for me to think anyone in the tower's death was beneficial in any way. I think the reason I'd be less happy with someone murdering Falwell than I was with his natural death is that I think murdering someone in cold blood is wrong pretty much all of the time. I still wouldn't be upset at all that the guy died, but I'd be unhappy with the fact that there was violence involved.
Also, the US at large can be said to be making the world a worse place by the collective actions of its people and government. Which, by your logic, justifies the reaction to the WTC attack.
This doesn't work, mainly because every single person in the US does not subscribe to the same set of actions or beliefs. I don't think every person in the US is making the world a worse place, or even most US citizens.
Religion aside, I personally think that literally celebrating his death isn't the hottest thing to do. I can understand how people would be frustrated with him, and be relieved he's gone. I can't say I wouldnt have a bit of a smirk on my face when Fred Phelps dies.
At very, very worst: it simply isn't in the best of taste. Which is not to say it isn't understandable.
Seems to me you only think someone's actions can be contemptible if their philosophy or beliefs do not agree with yours.
When did all beliefs become all lovely and hunky-dory and we-have-to-accept-them-all-because-they're-beliefs?
I can dislike Falwell and many others for their beliefs. Because their beliefs don't exist in a vacuum. Their ideals permeate everything they do, just like everyone else. Do you really believe there are no contemptible ideas?
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because there's no reason for me to think anyone in the tower's death was beneficial in any way.
All the people dancing disagree.
This doesn't work, mainly because every single person in the US does not subscribe to the same set of actions or beliefs. I don't think every person in the US is making the world a worse place, or even most US citizens.
To both you and VC, agreed, but that's our perspective. I don't believe for a second that the people in the middle east are fundamentally different than we are, just that they've been raised to believe different things. And one of those things seems to be that the US is a great evil in the world that is detrimental to their lives.
Kinda like how you guys believe fundamentalists are a great evil in the world that is detrimental to your lives.
Instead of arguing the veracity of either claim, perhaps it's time to take a step back and realize that people believe these things to the level that they will blow themselves up. So to condemn them for actions as a result of that belief, but not actions of those with similar beliefs to yours shows why there isn't any kind of dialogue or resolution in the works. It shows why violence seems to be the only way people can communicate in these situations. Because you won't respect the strength of their belief.
I'm sorry, that was way OT, but I'm done anyway. Day's done, gotta go home. Go ahead and debunk me, I probably won't be back until tomorrow anyway.
EDIT - Posh, of course ideas can be contemptible. What I'm arguing against is deciding that an action is contemptible because the reason for that action is contemptible. Either celebrating death is okay or it is not. The reasons shouldn't matter.
because there's no reason for me to think anyone in the tower's death was beneficial in any way.
All the people dancing disagree.
This doesn't work, mainly because every single person in the US does not subscribe to the same set of actions or beliefs. I don't think every person in the US is making the world a worse place, or even most US citizens.
To both you and VC, agreed, but that's our perspective. I don't believe for a second that the people in the middle east are fundamentally different than we are, just that they've been raised to believe different things. And one of those things seems to be that the US is a great evil in the world that is detrimental to their lives.
Kinda like how you guys believe fundamentalists are a great evil in the world that is detrimental to your lives.
Instead of arguing the veracity of either claim, perhaps it's time to take a step back and realize that people believe these things to the level that they will blow themselves up. So to condemn them for actions as a result of that belief, but not actions of those with similar beliefs to yours shows why there isn't any kind of dialogue or resolution in the works. It shows why violence seems to be the only way people can communicate in these situations. Because you won't respect the strength of their belief.
I'm sorry, that was way OT, but I'm done anyway. Day's done, gotta go home. Go ahead and debunk me, I probably won't be back until tomorrow anyway.
EDIT - Posh, of course ideas can be contemptible. What I'm arguing against is deciding that an action is contemptible because the reason for that action is contemptible.
If I didn't respect the strength of his belief, I wouldn't have viewed his eventual death as a more likely endpoint to the harm he caused than him changing his mind and deciding to be cool with people.
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You look down on the muslims because you disagree with their cause. You don't look down on those celebrating Falwell's death because you DO agree with their cause.
I contribute to Oxfam because I believe in their cause. I do not contribute to the IRA because I don't believe in their cause. Does this also make me a hypocrite?
When you decide that every value judgement is absolutely equal, maybe.
Wait, is Nova C pulling the bullshit "You don't have the authority to evaluate the actions or beliefs of others, because, since there is no objective morality, no one's beliefs are any better than anyone else's."?
I hope not, because it doesn't hold a drop of water.
To both you and VC, agreed, but that's our perspective. I don't believe for a second that the people in the middle east are fundamentally different than we are, just that they've been raised to believe different things. And one of those things seems to be that the US is a great evil in the world that is detrimental to their lives.
Kinda like how you guys believe fundamentalists are a great evil in the world that is detrimental to your lives.
If you're done debating I won't argue with most of your post, but I want to make it clear that I was not raised to dislike fundamentalism. I developed that dislike without any input from my parents or other influential authority figures in my life.
To both you and VC, agreed, but that's our perspective. I don't believe for a second that the people in the middle east are fundamentally different than we are, just that they've been raised to believe different things. And one of those things seems to be that the US is a great evil in the world that is detrimental to their lives.
Kinda like how you guys believe fundamentalists are a great evil in the world that is detrimental to your lives.
If you're done debating I won't argue with most of your post, but I want to make it clear that I was not raised to dislike fundamentalism. I developed that dislike without any input from my parents or other influential authority figures in my life.
Oh yeah, that too. I was actually raised Catholic, with fundamentalist grandparents on my dad's side.
To both you and VC, agreed, but that's our perspective. I don't believe for a second that the people in the middle east are fundamentally different than we are, just that they've been raised to believe different things. And one of those things seems to be that the US is a great evil in the world that is detrimental to their lives.
I'm sorry -- last time I checked, how you were raised wasn't an excuse to heedlessly believe what others tell you, despite all evidence and reason.
I fucking despise this line of thinking. It's basically nihilism. I mean, if everyone is basically the same, and all beliefs are really just dependant on time and place, and equally valid, then why believe anything? Why fight for anything? Why resist anything? Nothing is just, nothing is unjust, everything just is.
If you can't see what bullshit that is, then I feel very sorry for you.
I have to wonder how many people who are so offended over anyone speaking ill of Jerry Falwell right now because "you shouldn't speak ill of the dead" were celebrating when al-Zarqawi or Saddam Hussein were killed.
This is a different issue altogether.
We were trying to kill those people.
I agree fully with Shinto. He and Variable are correct. This about living your life honestly and not as a cowardly, two-faced punk. Celebrating someone's death? Then shouldn't you have been supporting his murder? If his death was such a great thing, why weren't you and your buddies putting together a collection to hire a hitman? Why don't you live by your ideals? Why don't you put actions towards your apparent goals? I'll tell you why later.
This is complete rubbish. First off, as has been said, I had no desire whatsoever to see that man martyred in any way. More to the point though, while I am deeply satisfied that his corpulent heart finally imploded, in no way did I hate him enough to feel that his life deserved to be artificially shortened.
The world is a better place now that he is gone. But his existence didn't post such grave threat to the world that there was moral justification enough to kill him or support his murder.
There is a stupid false dichotomy at play here, and while it is no surprise that Yar supports it (this is vintage Yar logic) I'm shocked he wasn't the first to posit this nonsense.
"If you're happy someone is dead, you're a hipocrite for not murdering them!"
"If you're pleased with that $5 you found on the ground, you're a hipocrite for not beating the shit out of that guy and taking his $5!!!!"
"If you're so happy you're wife is pregnant, you're a hipocrite for using condoms all those years!!!!!!!!!!"
YAY, LETS ALL LIVE IN THE LAND OF DUMB, WHERE DUMB PEOPLE SPEW DUMB BULLSHIT ALL THE TIME.
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edited May 2007
I just popped back in to say that although you guys are arguing parts of my post that aren't exactly what I'm trying to say, I thought of where my actual point falls apart and am going to concede this with the statement I still think you're dicks for being glad he's dead. :P
I can't speak for celery here, but no, there are no beleifs I am willing to hate someone for. Hatred is dehumanizing and just begets more hatred. There are beleifs I would die fighting against, but none worth hating for. Hatred is self-centered and dehumanizing to others. The choice is either hatred or understanding. You can understand someone intelectually and hate them at the same time, but real understanding of another human being requires a level of empathy that hatred precludes. It is a very difficult thing to give up hating others, especially people that hate you. We should try anyway.
God you're such a fucking hippy. "It's okay to not like things but only if you love everyone and trees!"
Well that was shrewdly political. It's much easier to characterize what someone says as foolish rather than responding. If you had said nothing I would have understood, but this is just silly.
To reiterate and give you another chance to respond: Hatred has no relationship to disagreeing with someone, or being angry with someone, or being opposed with someone. Hatred is a mindset that encourages you to be dismissive of others rather than try to understand them. It encourages you to attack instead of finding common ground. Assuming Falwell hated gays (which is neither here nor there, and I havn't ever paid much attention to the man so I don't really know off hand) he thought that was just as justified as you hating him. In which case you both get to be at each others' throats, trying to shout each other down, without accomplishing anything.
That's why I brought up American History X actually. I think it illustrates this point very well. Neo-nazis are people the vast majority would rather hate than try to understand, but you can't educate, or learn from, people that way.
I can't find the origional article site. I cut and paste this into a word file so I could read it later as I was busy at the time (kinda long)
Jerry Falwell died in his office Tuesday, expired at age 73, spent much of his life hurling maledictions, and it is probably best to let him speak for himself. He was, after all, a preacher. In 1984, Falwell called the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church "a vile and Satanic system" that will "one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven." Members of these churches, Falwell added, are "brute beasts." Falwell initially denied his statements, offering Jerry Sloan, an MCC minister and gay rights activist $5,000 to prove that he had made them. When Sloan produced a videotape containing footage of Falwell's denunciations, the reverend refused to pay. Only after Sloan sued did Falwell cough up the money. Falwell uttered countless epithets over his long life--in 1999 he warned that Tinky Winky, a character on the children's show Teletubbies, might be gay--but his most infamous remark arrived on the morning of 9/11, after the terrorist attacks, when he proclaimed, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" Though Falwell's influence waned in his twilight years--his approval rating among evangelicals, according to a 2006 Pew Poll, had drifted downward to 46 percent--his well-publicized gaffes continued to make him one of the most recognizable figures of the Christian right. While the names of evangelical heavies like Focus on the Family founder and chairman James Dobson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins are unknown to most people, Falwell's pudgy visage remains the symbol of the culture war his apostles have inherited. As Perkins wrote of Falwell in a newsletter after his death, "He was a pioneer whose legacy, marked by courage and candor, blazed the trail for all men and women of conviction to engage--boldly--on the great questions of our day." But for Falwell, the "questions of the day" did not always relate to abortion and homosexuality--nor did they begin there. Decades before the forces that now make up the Christian right declared their culture war, Falwell was a rabid segregationist who railed against the civil rights movement from the pulpit of the abandoned backwater bottling plant he converted into Thomas Road Baptist Church. This opening episode of Falwell's life, studiously overlooked by his friends, naïvely unacknowledged by many of his chroniclers, and puzzlingly and glaringly omitted in the obituaries of the Washington Post and New York Times, is essential to understanding his historical significance in galvanizing the Christian right. Indeed, it was race--not abortion or the attendant suite of so-called "values" issues--that propelled Falwell and his evangelical allies into political activism. As with his positions on abortion and homosexuality, the basso profondo preacher's own words on race stand as vivid documents of his legacy. Falwell launched on the warpath against civil rights four years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate public schools with a sermon titled "Segregation or Integration: Which?" "If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made," Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. "The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line." Falwell's jeremiad continued: "The true Negro does not want integration.... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race." Falwell went on to announce that integration "will destroy our race eventually. In one northern city," he warned, "a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife." As pressure from the civil rights movement built during the early 1960s, and President Lyndon Johnson introduced sweeping civil rights legislation, Falwell grew increasingly conspiratorial. He enlisted with J. Edgar Hoover to distribute FBI manufactured propaganda against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and publicly denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs." In a 1964 sermon, "Ministers and Marchers," Falwell attacked King as a Communist subversive. After questioning "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations," Falwell declared, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed." Falwell concluded, "Preachers are not called to be politicians, but soul winners." Then, for a time, Falwell appeared to follow his own advice. He retreated from massive resistance and founded the Lynchburg Christian Academy, an institution described by the Lynchburg News in 1966 as "a private school for white students." It was one among many so-called "seg academies" created in the South to avoid integrated public schools. For Falwell and his brethren, private Christian schools were the last redoubt. Rather than continue a hopeless struggle against the inevitable, through their schools they could circumvent the integration entirely. Five years later, Falwell christened Liberty University, a college that today funnels a steady stream of dedicated young cadres into Republican Congressional offices and conservative think tanks. (Tony Perkins is among Falwell's Christian soldiers.) In a recent interview broadcast on CNN the day of his death, Falwell offered his version of the Christian right's genesis: "We were simply driven into the process by Roe v. Wade and earlier than that, the expulsion of God from the public square." But his account was fuzzy revisionism at best. By 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe, the antiabortion movement was almost exclusively Catholic. While various Catholic cardinals condemned the Court's ruling, W.A. Criswell, the fundamentalist former president of America's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, casually endorsed it. (Falwell, an independent Baptist for forty years, joined the SBC in 1996.) "I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person," Criswell exclaimed, "and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed." A year before Roe, the SBC had resolved to press for legislation allowing for abortion in limited cases. While abortion clinics sprung up across the United States during the early 1970s, evangelicals did little. No pastors invoked the Dred Scott decision to undermine the legal justification for abortion. There were no clinic blockades, no passionate cries to liberate the "pre-born." For Falwell and his allies, the true impetus for political action came when the Supreme Court ruled in Green v. Connally to revoke the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory private schools in 1971. Their resentment was compounded in 1975, when the Internal Revenue Service attempted to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University, which forbade interracial dating. (Blacks were denied entry until that year.) Falwell was furious, complaining, "In some states it's easier to open a massage parlor than to open a Christian school." Seeking to capitalize on mounting evangelical discontent, a right-wing Washington operative and anti-Vatican II Catholic named Paul Weyrich took a series of trips down South to meet with Falwell and other evangelical leaders. Weyrich hoped to produce a well-funded evangelical lobbying outfit that could lend grassroots muscle to the top-heavy Republican Party and effectively mobilize the vanquished forces of massive resistance into a new political bloc. In discussions with Falwell, Weyrich cited various social ills that necessitated evangelical involvement in politics, particularly abortion, school prayer and the rise of feminism. His implorations initially fell on deaf ears. "I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed," Weyrich recalled in an interview in the early 1990s. "What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation." In 1979, at Weyrich's behest, Falwell founded a group that he called the Moral Majority. Along with a vanguard of evangelical icons including D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson and Tim LaHaye, Falwell's organization hoisted the banner of the "pro-family" movement, declaring war on abortion and homosexuality. But were it not for the federal government's attempts to enable little black boys and black girls to go to school with little white boys and white girls, the Christian right's culture war would likely never have come into being. "The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion," former Falwell ally Ed Dobson told author Randall Balmer in 1990. "I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something." As the Christian right gradually transmuted its racial resentment into sexual politics, Liberty University began enrolling nonwhite students and Thomas Road Baptist Church integrated. In the irony of ironies in 2006, at Justice Sunday III, a rally for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, a man who belonged to a white-only "eating club" at Princeton University, Falwell haltingly rose to sing "We Shall Overcome." Beside him stood Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, Alveda King, an evangelical antiabortion activist. On the day of Falwell's death, Republican presidential frontrunners fell over one another to memorialize him. Arizona Senator John McCain, who in the 2000 presidential campaign had called Falwell an "agent of intolerance," then spoke at the 2006 graduation ceremony at Liberty University, praising Falwell as "a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country." Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whose Mormon faith is listed as a cult by Falwell's Southern Baptist Convention, hailed him as "an American who built and led a movement based on strong principles and strong faith.... The legacy of his important work will continue through his many ministries where he put his faith into action." Rudy Giuliani, the thrice-married prochoice former New York City mayor, gay rights advocate and erstwhile cross-dresser, was also profuse in his praise of Falwell. "He was a man who set a direction," Giuliani said. "He was someone who was not afraid to speak his mind. We all have great respect for him." The gushing eulogies of Falwell by leading GOP presidential hopefuls demonstrated the preacher's earthly limitations and his enduring influence. Under Falwell's guidance, the Christian right subsumed much of the Republican apparatus and now holds the key to the presidential nominating process. McCain, Romney and Giuliani may never see eye-to-eye with Falwell, even in heaven, but in the end they paid fealty at his grave. They're all Jerry's kids now.
short and sweet: Falwells main focus , what got him started and kept him going, and the reason he founded a university was all to resist desegrigation. He called Dr. Martin Luther King a "communist subversive" and "The true Negro does not want integration.... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race."
The abortion and gay stuff happened later when blatent racism was no longer fashionable.
ALocksly on
Yes,... yes, I agree. It's totally unfair that sober you gets into trouble for things that drunk you did.
I can't speak for celery here, but no, there are no beleifs I am willing to hate someone for. Hatred is dehumanizing and just begets more hatred. There are beleifs I would die fighting against, but none worth hating for. Hatred is self-centered and dehumanizing to others. The choice is either hatred or understanding. You can understand someone intelectually and hate them at the same time, but real understanding of another human being requires a level of empathy that hatred precludes. It is a very difficult thing to give up hating others, especially people that hate you. We should try anyway.
God you're such a fucking hippy. "It's okay to not like things but only if you love everyone and trees!"
Well that was shrewdly political. It's much easier to characterize what someone says as foolish rather than responding. If you had said nothing I would have understood, but this is just silly.
No, he's absolutely correct. Some beliefs are repugnant, and are worthy of vehement responses, including outright hatred. Anyone who wants to get all touchy-feely about the validity of racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian can go right ahead, but don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us (who comprise a majority of the posters here) who have strong, strong, negative opinions about the people who espouse these views.
You, sir, are a stinking hippy.
To reiterate and give you another chance to respond: Hatred has no relationship to disagreeing with someone, or being angry with someone, or being opposed with someone.
Yes it fucking does. Hatred of something implies that a person wishes to see that thing layed low, repudiated, even destroyed. It is an emotional response, yes. But it is sometimes valid. Hatred of extremist views which are totally contrary to your own personal beliefs is not only valid, it's pretty much expected.
Hatred is a mindset that encourages you to be dismissive of others rather than try to understand them.
Bullshit. Understanding and hatred are not mutually exclusive. If a viewpoint is truly vile, understanding it will likely cause you to despise it. And frankly, I have no desire to understand people who actively promote these horrible ideas. And I can only understand the people who wish to do so in a completely detached social-science sort of way - I have no use for people who want to understand them so they can fucking better empathize with the object of my disgust.
It encourages you to attack instead of finding common ground. Assuming Falwell hated gays (which is neither here nor there, and I havn't ever paid much attention to the man so I don't really know off hand) he thought that was just as justified as you hating him. In which case you both get to be at each others' throats, trying to shout each other down, without accomplishing anything.
Where do you come off being so sanctimonious about our hatred of a person you admit to knowing little about? This is why the average person tends to dislike liberals. Conservatives, at least, think they know a good bit about the things they moralize about.
That's why I brought up American History X actually. I think it illustrates this point very well. Neo-nazis are people the vast majority would rather hate than try to understand, but you can't educate, or learn from, people that way.
If you knew anything about the anti-gay evangelical movement in America you'd probably understand how fucking pointless it is to try to educate or understand it's more ardent followers. People willing to disown their gay children are most unlikely to listen to your preachy ass tell them they were wrong. Of course, you'd probably be so damn busy trying to understand them that you wouldn't dare tell them they were wrong anyway, and you'd end up creating an interpretive dance to explain your experiences to the other self-hating lesbians at the next big vegan pot-luck.*
*hyperbole
-edit-
All you damn hippies read the post above this one.
“If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”
“Textbooks are Soviet propaganda”
“AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”
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There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
No, he's absolutely correct. Some beliefs are repugnant, and are worthy of vehement responses, including outright hatred. Anyone who wants to get all touchy-feely about the validity of racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian can go right ahead, but don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us (who comprise a majority of the posters here) who have strong, strong, negative opinions about the people who espouse these views.
I think you might be getting somewhat too emotional here. Like I said hatred and disagreement are not the same thing. To not hate someone is not to feel their racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian is not to feel those things have validity. It's just not having a mindset that allows or encourages anger to the point of shutting out what other people say and think, whether you agree with them or not.
To reiterate and give you another chance to respond: Hatred has no relationship to disagreeing with someone, or being angry with someone, or being opposed with someone.
Yes it fucking does. Hatred of something implies that a person wishes to see that thing layed low, repudiated, even destroyed. It is an emotional response, yes. But it is sometimes valid. Hatred of extremist views which are totally contrary to your own personal beliefs is not only valid, it's pretty much expected.
To steal a phrase: No it fucking doesn't. Hatred of something certainly means wanting to lay it low, but it does not change the nature or substance of your disagrement, anger or opposition. It just incites rage.
Hatred is a mindset that encourages you to be dismissive of others rather than try to understand them.
Bullshit. Understanding and hatred are not mutually exclusive. If a viewpoint is truly vile, understanding it will likely cause you to despise it. And frankly, I have no desire to understand people who actively promote these horrible ideas. And I can only understand the people who wish to do so in a completely detached social-science sort of way - I have no use for people who want to understand them so they can fucking better empathize with the object of my disgust.
Oh, hypothetically they are not. But I have never ever seen it to be otherwise. When you hate someone you are always willing to believe the worst and ignore the noble. And you can't really understand someone with such a skewed viewpoint. I'm telling you, try watching American History X, it's a stellar movie.
It encourages you to attack instead of finding common ground. Assuming Falwell hated gays (which is neither here nor there, and I havn't ever paid much attention to the man so I don't really know off hand) he thought that was just as justified as you hating him. In which case you both get to be at each others' throats, trying to shout each other down, without accomplishing anything.
Where do you come off being so sanctimonious about our hatred of a person you admit to knowing little about? This is why the average person tends to dislike liberals. Conservatives, at least, think they know a good bit about the things they moralize about.
I would guess I come off as sanctimonious because you care too much about what other people think. I'm laying out general principles on how I think people should orient their worldview. I've never talked about how you're all terrible people. Even if I were, so what? This is both the internet, and a debate and discourse forum. The whole point of coming here is to talk about things with people that might disagree with you. That's my reason anyway.
That's why I brought up American History X actually. I think it illustrates this point very well. Neo-nazis are people the vast majority would rather hate than try to understand, but you can't educate, or learn from, people that way.
If you knew anything about the anti-gay evangelical movement in America you'd probably understand how fucking pointless it is to try to educate or understand it's more ardent followers. People willing to disown their gay children are most unlikely to listen to your preachy ass tell them they were wrong. Of course, you'd probably be so damn busy trying to understand them that you wouldn't dare tell them they were wrong anyway, and you'd end up creating an interpretive dance to explain your experiences to the other self-hating lesbians at the next big vegan put-luck.*
I think I'm not getting my point across very well. The most important part isn't others listening to you, it's you listening to others. Chances are others already know and understand the reasons you believe what you believe, and they aren't enough. So it's important to really understand their reasons, without prejudice, if you are going to change their minds. Sometimes you can't, but people usually dont' even try. Which is a shame.
edit: g'night
edit2: seriously? your not going to actually discuss this?
That's pretty much what I got out of that. And I've seen American History X. I thought it was a great shower rape scene, and really weak indictment/possible homoerotic glamorization of neo-nazism.
Oh wahhhh! Someone's being not-nice to dude who hopes everyone who tolerates homosexuality dies of teh GRIDS! The trees are going to cry! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE TREES?!
I wasn't going to post because I thought that I would get a thought-out response, and I don't have time to respond to that tonight. (Incidentally I did end up having time, but my lack of follow-through aside.) This however I'm not even sure I have words for. That's just... amazingly erudite.
I wasn't going to post because I thought that I would get a thought-out response, and I don't have time to respond to that tonight. (Incidentally I did end up having time, but my lack of follow-through aside.) This however I'm not even sure I have words for. That's just... amazingly erudite.
You mean like skipping the two+ pages of discussion between now and the last time you posted, in their entirity?
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
So it's important to really understand their reasons, without prejudice, if you are going to change their minds.
Nothing could've changed Falwell's stance on homosexuality; his hatred of it was as deeply ingrained into him as his religion was. And understanding why he hated it wouldn't have made a fucking difference; you wouldn't have been able to convince him otherwise.
And for the record, the reason he was so vehemently anti-teh gays (aside from flagrantly homosexual men violating his well established schemas and perceived gender roles) was because he believed parts of the bible told him to. Whether or not they actually do is debatable, but his whole reasoning can be boiled down to "because the bible says so."
So it's important to really understand their reasons, without prejudice, if you are going to change their minds.
Nothing could've changed Falwell's stance on homosexuality; his hatred of it was as deeply ingrained into him as his religion was. And understanding why he hated it wouldn't have made a fucking difference; you wouldn't have been able to convince him otherwise.
And for the record, the reason he was so vehemently anti-teh gays (aside from flagrantly homosexual men violating his well established schemas and perceived gender roles) was because he believed parts of the bible told him to. Whether or not they actually do is debatable, but his whole reasoning can be boiled down to "because the bible says so."
That's the only reason I've ever heard, or rather read, him giving. But dimes to dollars there is something else. And if there isn't, so what? By finding out I lose absolutely nothing, yet have something important to gain; understanding.
I wasn't going to post because I thought that I would get a thought-out response, and I don't have time to respond to that tonight. (Incidentally I did end up having time, but my lack of follow-through aside.) This however I'm not even sure I have words for. That's just... amazingly erudite.
You mean like skipping the two+ pages of discussion between now and the last time you posted, in their entirity?
Huh? I'm not even sure I understand this. If you restate it for me I'll try to respond tomorrow after work. As it is I'm going to try to go to sleep again. I slept late yesterday, but if I don't fall asleep soon I'm going to be very tired during work.
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"More fish for Kunta!"
--LeVar Burton
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
And if there isn't, so what? By finding out I lose absolutely nothing, yet have something important to gain; understanding.
Understanding that he's a bigoted, homophobic hate mongerer only makes him easier to hate. Knowing his reason for hating doesn't absolve him of being a fuckstick.
I'm exceedingly glad Falwell is dead. He was a blight. Someone doesn't suddenly become respectable or good when he becomes dead.
Falwell is dead. Good. I think his life was deleterious and I'm glad it's over with.
Clearly you are immoral because you wanted someone to kill him ,you were just too much of a pussy to do it yourself [/sarcasm].
Don't forget that he never personally murdered anyone, therefore he was actually a pretty decent guy unworthy of being viewed in the same manner as an enemy in war.
This is complete rubbish. First off, as has been said, I had no desire whatsoever to see that man martyred in any way. More to the point though, while I am deeply satisfied that his corpulent heart finally imploded, in no way did I hate him enough to feel that his life deserved to be artificially shortened.
The world is a better place now that he is gone. But his existence didn't post such grave threat to the world that there was moral justification enough to kill him or support his murder.
There is a stupid false dichotomy at play here, and while it is no surprise that Yar supports it (this is vintage Yar logic) I'm shocked he wasn't the first to posit this nonsense.
"If you're happy someone is dead, you're a hipocrite for not murdering them!"
"If you're pleased with that $5 you found on the ground, you're a hipocrite for not beating the shit out of that guy and taking his $5!!!!"
"If you're so happy you're wife is pregnant, you're a hipocrite for using condoms all those years!!!!!!!!!!"
I think you've purposefully skipped over the several pages of us addressing why this isn't any sort of false dichotomy. And while calling something "vintage Yar logic" is cute, it doesn't really do anything for the discussion - your logic is just as absurd to me as mine may be to you.
If a guy gets his ass kicked in front of you and $5 falls out of his pocket and you're like, "sweet, $5!" then yes.
And the condom logic only applies if you wanted him to live back when he was alive.
I don't know, your analogies aren't even really thought-provoking or difficult to dismantle. Care to add anything new to this?
As I've pointed out before, there is no requirement that you respect him in death any more than you did in life. And although it isn't for me, I'm sympathetic to the notion of hating someone, if only as part of the psychological healing process for one's own personal traumas.
But celebrating one's death only shows that the hatred and the trauma runs too deep and is unhealthy. As I said, death doesn't faovr your ideas. Sometime you'll die, too. And what's more important between now and then - that more people learn to see things your way, or that more people who don't see things your way, die? The former is productive and progressive, the latter is fruitless and evil.
Death continues for us all, always. And therefore his death doesn't "make the world a better place." His death was always an assumed inevitablility, and it's timing now instead of next week or next year is wholly irrelevant to the larger picture. What would have been relevant is him progessing his own ideas within his own life and disavowing previous ways in favor of encouraging electric cars or whatever the fuck you wished he would preach. Maybe if he hadn't died, that could have happened. You can shit on that idea all you want and claim your superior omniscience that it wouldn't happen, but that doesn't change the equation. Death isn't a victory in a war of ideas. If you think it is, you are part of what's wrong with this world as much as he is.
The fact still remains that this man is demonized politically, not for anything he's ever really done. The concrete things he's done involve rallying a new sector of the Republican base that wasn't very political before. And he wasn't even a sole leading figurehead in that, it was a reactionary movement to the so-called liberation of the late 60s and 70s that would have likely continued with someone else acting as its voice. He's had ideas on segregation and homosexuality that most of us here wouldn't agree with and which history will most likely denounce if it hasn't already. But he was far more compassionate and moderate in those misguided ideas than the man you guys want to believe he was.
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I'll try and rephrase my opinion here. I don't think it's fair to call the celebration of Falwell's death and the celebration of 9/11's deaths the same action. Yes, on a basic level, they're both celebrating the death of humans, but I think the details and context make them different enough that you can condemn one and not the other without being hypocritical.
Okay, make me understand. What is it about the context that makes it different? And don't say innocents, because that's a value call that doesn't work: You don't get to decide who's innocent and who isn't.
It's weird Shinto... I totally used to respect you here, but if that's honestly what you think I meant by ambushed, then I just feel kind of sorry for you.
Oh, and you said you felt ambushed first, shall I go take a few posts out of context to make you look like the colossal douche you're acting like?
One difference is that Falwell died of old age or heart attack or whatever, whereas terrorist victims are murdered. I wouldn't have been happy if I turned on the news and learned that some angry secular person/homosexual/whatever murdered Falwell.
The other difference goes against your request to not mention innocence, but I still think it's worth saying. Falwell was one dead man, who (in my opinion) made the world a worse place by advocating oppression of gays and lesbians. The deaths of pretty much any terrorist attack number from a few to more than a hundred, and since I don't know anything about the victims, I'm just naturally going to assume that each and every one of them wasn't a terrible person who was doing his or her best to spread hatred and intolerance.
Well, by assuming the best of the victims of 9/11 and the worst of Falwell, you make a judgment I don't think you have the authority to make. An old saying is, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Perhaps Falwell genuinely believed that what he was doing was making the world a better place. You don't get to decide that he was just a monster simply because you disagree with his beliefs.
I also don't agree with the idea that how someone dies determines whether or not it's okay to be glad that person is (those people are) dead. If the WTC had suffered a collapse because of an engineering fault instead of being flown into and the muslims danced in the street anyway, would you think that was okay? I highly doubt it.
Also, the US at large can be said to be making the world a worse place by the collective actions of its people and government. Which, by your logic, justifies the reaction to the WTC attack.
It is a safe assumption to make that the majority of the victims of the airplanes crashing did not actively and deliberately work to create political instability in the middle east. It is not a safe assumption to assume that Falwell didn't know his influence caused harm to large numbers of people regardless of whether or not they had done anything to warrant such, or that he pursued and selected his agendas by accident.
Can you tell me that the economic policies of the US and other first world nations don't have a detrimental effect on many other nations in the world, including middle eastern nations? And that the people who worked in the WTC worked in support of these economic policies?
I can say that it's safe to assume the majority of them did not actively and deliberately work to create political instability in the middle-east. What they did or did not unknowingly help do as a statistically insignificant part of a collective is not relevant to my claim.
No, I would still condemn anyone who cheered at their deaths, because there's no reason for me to think anyone in the tower's death was beneficial in any way. I think the reason I'd be less happy with someone murdering Falwell than I was with his natural death is that I think murdering someone in cold blood is wrong pretty much all of the time. I still wouldn't be upset at all that the guy died, but I'd be unhappy with the fact that there was violence involved.
This doesn't work, mainly because every single person in the US does not subscribe to the same set of actions or beliefs. I don't think every person in the US is making the world a worse place, or even most US citizens.
Hogwash.
Why would you think that?
One becomes "worth something" or "worthy of respect" based on what one does, not based on what one is.
At very, very worst: it simply isn't in the best of taste. Which is not to say it isn't understandable.
When did all beliefs become all lovely and hunky-dory and we-have-to-accept-them-all-because-they're-beliefs?
I can dislike Falwell and many others for their beliefs. Because their beliefs don't exist in a vacuum. Their ideals permeate everything they do, just like everyone else. Do you really believe there are no contemptible ideas?
All the people dancing disagree.
To both you and VC, agreed, but that's our perspective. I don't believe for a second that the people in the middle east are fundamentally different than we are, just that they've been raised to believe different things. And one of those things seems to be that the US is a great evil in the world that is detrimental to their lives.
Kinda like how you guys believe fundamentalists are a great evil in the world that is detrimental to your lives.
Instead of arguing the veracity of either claim, perhaps it's time to take a step back and realize that people believe these things to the level that they will blow themselves up. So to condemn them for actions as a result of that belief, but not actions of those with similar beliefs to yours shows why there isn't any kind of dialogue or resolution in the works. It shows why violence seems to be the only way people can communicate in these situations. Because you won't respect the strength of their belief.
I'm sorry, that was way OT, but I'm done anyway. Day's done, gotta go home. Go ahead and debunk me, I probably won't be back until tomorrow anyway.
EDIT - Posh, of course ideas can be contemptible. What I'm arguing against is deciding that an action is contemptible because the reason for that action is contemptible. Either celebrating death is okay or it is not. The reasons shouldn't matter.
If I didn't respect the strength of his belief, I wouldn't have viewed his eventual death as a more likely endpoint to the harm he caused than him changing his mind and deciding to be cool with people.
I contribute to Oxfam because I believe in their cause. I do not contribute to the IRA because I don't believe in their cause. Does this also make me a hypocrite?
When you decide that every value judgement is absolutely equal, maybe.
I hope not, because it doesn't hold a drop of water.
Oh yeah, that too. I was actually raised Catholic, with fundamentalist grandparents on my dad's side.
This is complete rubbish. First off, as has been said, I had no desire whatsoever to see that man martyred in any way. More to the point though, while I am deeply satisfied that his corpulent heart finally imploded, in no way did I hate him enough to feel that his life deserved to be artificially shortened.
The world is a better place now that he is gone. But his existence didn't post such grave threat to the world that there was moral justification enough to kill him or support his murder.
There is a stupid false dichotomy at play here, and while it is no surprise that Yar supports it (this is vintage Yar logic) I'm shocked he wasn't the first to posit this nonsense.
"If you're happy someone is dead, you're a hipocrite for not murdering them!"
"If you're pleased with that $5 you found on the ground, you're a hipocrite for not beating the shit out of that guy and taking his $5!!!!"
"If you're so happy you're wife is pregnant, you're a hipocrite for using condoms all those years!!!!!!!!!!"
YAY, LETS ALL LIVE IN THE LAND OF DUMB, WHERE DUMB PEOPLE SPEW DUMB BULLSHIT ALL THE TIME.
Well that was shrewdly political. It's much easier to characterize what someone says as foolish rather than responding. If you had said nothing I would have understood, but this is just silly.
To reiterate and give you another chance to respond: Hatred has no relationship to disagreeing with someone, or being angry with someone, or being opposed with someone. Hatred is a mindset that encourages you to be dismissive of others rather than try to understand them. It encourages you to attack instead of finding common ground. Assuming Falwell hated gays (which is neither here nor there, and I havn't ever paid much attention to the man so I don't really know off hand) he thought that was just as justified as you hating him. In which case you both get to be at each others' throats, trying to shout each other down, without accomplishing anything.
That's why I brought up American History X actually. I think it illustrates this point very well. Neo-nazis are people the vast majority would rather hate than try to understand, but you can't educate, or learn from, people that way.
--LeVar Burton
In 1984, Falwell called the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church "a vile and Satanic system" that will "one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven." Members of these churches, Falwell added, are "brute beasts." Falwell initially denied his statements, offering Jerry Sloan, an MCC minister and gay rights activist $5,000 to prove that he had made them. When Sloan produced a videotape containing footage of Falwell's denunciations, the reverend refused to pay. Only after Sloan sued did Falwell cough up the money.
Falwell uttered countless epithets over his long life--in 1999 he warned that Tinky Winky, a character on the children's show Teletubbies, might be gay--but his most infamous remark arrived on the morning of 9/11, after the terrorist attacks, when he proclaimed, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
Though Falwell's influence waned in his twilight years--his approval rating among evangelicals, according to a 2006 Pew Poll, had drifted downward to 46 percent--his well-publicized gaffes continued to make him one of the most recognizable figures of the Christian right. While the names of evangelical heavies like Focus on the Family founder and chairman James Dobson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins are unknown to most people, Falwell's pudgy visage remains the symbol of the culture war his apostles have inherited. As Perkins wrote of Falwell in a newsletter after his death, "He was a pioneer whose legacy, marked by courage and candor, blazed the trail for all men and women of conviction to engage--boldly--on the great questions of our day."
But for Falwell, the "questions of the day" did not always relate to abortion and homosexuality--nor did they begin there. Decades before the forces that now make up the Christian right declared their culture war, Falwell was a rabid segregationist who railed against the civil rights movement from the pulpit of the abandoned backwater bottling plant he converted into Thomas Road Baptist Church. This opening episode of Falwell's life, studiously overlooked by his friends, naïvely unacknowledged by many of his chroniclers, and puzzlingly and glaringly omitted in the obituaries of the Washington Post and New York Times, is essential to understanding his historical significance in galvanizing the Christian right. Indeed, it was race--not abortion or the attendant suite of so-called "values" issues--that propelled Falwell and his evangelical allies into political activism.
As with his positions on abortion and homosexuality, the basso profondo preacher's own words on race stand as vivid documents of his legacy. Falwell launched on the warpath against civil rights four years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate public schools with a sermon titled "Segregation or Integration: Which?"
"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made," Falwell boomed from above his congregation in Lynchburg. "The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."
Falwell's jeremiad continued: "The true Negro does not want integration.... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race." Falwell went on to announce that integration "will destroy our race eventually. In one northern city," he warned, "a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife."
As pressure from the civil rights movement built during the early 1960s, and President Lyndon Johnson introduced sweeping civil rights legislation, Falwell grew increasingly conspiratorial. He enlisted with J. Edgar Hoover to distribute FBI manufactured propaganda against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and publicly denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs."
In a 1964 sermon, "Ministers and Marchers," Falwell attacked King as a Communist subversive. After questioning "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations," Falwell declared, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."
Falwell concluded, "Preachers are not called to be politicians, but soul winners."
Then, for a time, Falwell appeared to follow his own advice. He retreated from massive resistance and founded the Lynchburg Christian Academy, an institution described by the Lynchburg News in 1966 as "a private school for white students." It was one among many so-called "seg academies" created in the South to avoid integrated public schools.
For Falwell and his brethren, private Christian schools were the last redoubt. Rather than continue a hopeless struggle against the inevitable, through their schools they could circumvent the integration entirely. Five years later, Falwell christened Liberty University, a college that today funnels a steady stream of dedicated young cadres into Republican Congressional offices and conservative think tanks. (Tony Perkins is among Falwell's Christian soldiers.)
In a recent interview broadcast on CNN the day of his death, Falwell offered his version of the Christian right's genesis: "We were simply driven into the process by Roe v. Wade and earlier than that, the expulsion of God from the public square." But his account was fuzzy revisionism at best. By 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe, the antiabortion movement was almost exclusively Catholic. While various Catholic cardinals condemned the Court's ruling, W.A. Criswell, the fundamentalist former president of America's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, casually endorsed it. (Falwell, an independent Baptist for forty years, joined the SBC in 1996.) "I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person," Criswell exclaimed, "and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed." A year before Roe, the SBC had resolved to press for legislation allowing for abortion in limited cases.
While abortion clinics sprung up across the United States during the early 1970s, evangelicals did little. No pastors invoked the Dred Scott decision to undermine the legal justification for abortion. There were no clinic blockades, no passionate cries to liberate the "pre-born." For Falwell and his allies, the true impetus for political action came when the Supreme Court ruled in Green v. Connally to revoke the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory private schools in 1971. Their resentment was compounded in 1975, when the Internal Revenue Service attempted to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University, which forbade interracial dating. (Blacks were denied entry until that year.) Falwell was furious, complaining, "In some states it's easier to open a massage parlor than to open a Christian school."
Seeking to capitalize on mounting evangelical discontent, a right-wing Washington operative and anti-Vatican II Catholic named Paul Weyrich took a series of trips down South to meet with Falwell and other evangelical leaders. Weyrich hoped to produce a well-funded evangelical lobbying outfit that could lend grassroots muscle to the top-heavy Republican Party and effectively mobilize the vanquished forces of massive resistance into a new political bloc. In discussions with Falwell, Weyrich cited various social ills that necessitated evangelical involvement in politics, particularly abortion, school prayer and the rise of feminism. His implorations initially fell on deaf ears.
"I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed," Weyrich recalled in an interview in the early 1990s. "What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation."
In 1979, at Weyrich's behest, Falwell founded a group that he called the Moral Majority. Along with a vanguard of evangelical icons including D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson and Tim LaHaye, Falwell's organization hoisted the banner of the "pro-family" movement, declaring war on abortion and homosexuality. But were it not for the federal government's attempts to enable little black boys and black girls to go to school with little white boys and white girls, the Christian right's culture war would likely never have come into being. "The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion," former Falwell ally Ed Dobson told author Randall Balmer in 1990. "I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something."
As the Christian right gradually transmuted its racial resentment into sexual politics, Liberty University began enrolling nonwhite students and Thomas Road Baptist Church integrated. In the irony of ironies in 2006, at Justice Sunday III, a rally for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, a man who belonged to a white-only "eating club" at Princeton University, Falwell haltingly rose to sing "We Shall Overcome." Beside him stood Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, Alveda King, an evangelical antiabortion activist.
On the day of Falwell's death, Republican presidential frontrunners fell over one another to memorialize him. Arizona Senator John McCain, who in the 2000 presidential campaign had called Falwell an "agent of intolerance," then spoke at the 2006 graduation ceremony at Liberty University, praising Falwell as "a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country."
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor whose Mormon faith is listed as a cult by Falwell's Southern Baptist Convention, hailed him as "an American who built and led a movement based on strong principles and strong faith.... The legacy of his important work will continue through his many ministries where he put his faith into action."
Rudy Giuliani, the thrice-married prochoice former New York City mayor, gay rights advocate and erstwhile cross-dresser, was also profuse in his praise of Falwell. "He was a man who set a direction," Giuliani said. "He was someone who was not afraid to speak his mind. We all have great respect for him."
The gushing eulogies of Falwell by leading GOP presidential hopefuls demonstrated the preacher's earthly limitations and his enduring influence. Under Falwell's guidance, the Christian right subsumed much of the Republican apparatus and now holds the key to the presidential nominating process. McCain, Romney and Giuliani may never see eye-to-eye with Falwell, even in heaven, but in the end they paid fealty at his grave.
They're all Jerry's kids now.
short and sweet: Falwells main focus , what got him started and kept him going, and the reason he founded a university was all to resist desegrigation. He called Dr. Martin Luther King a "communist subversive" and "The true Negro does not want integration.... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race."
The abortion and gay stuff happened later when blatent racism was no longer fashionable.
No, he's absolutely correct. Some beliefs are repugnant, and are worthy of vehement responses, including outright hatred. Anyone who wants to get all touchy-feely about the validity of racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian can go right ahead, but don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us (who comprise a majority of the posters here) who have strong, strong, negative opinions about the people who espouse these views.
You, sir, are a stinking hippy.
Yes it fucking does. Hatred of something implies that a person wishes to see that thing layed low, repudiated, even destroyed. It is an emotional response, yes. But it is sometimes valid. Hatred of extremist views which are totally contrary to your own personal beliefs is not only valid, it's pretty much expected.
Bullshit. Understanding and hatred are not mutually exclusive. If a viewpoint is truly vile, understanding it will likely cause you to despise it. And frankly, I have no desire to understand people who actively promote these horrible ideas. And I can only understand the people who wish to do so in a completely detached social-science sort of way - I have no use for people who want to understand them so they can fucking better empathize with the object of my disgust.
Where do you come off being so sanctimonious about our hatred of a person you admit to knowing little about? This is why the average person tends to dislike liberals. Conservatives, at least, think they know a good bit about the things they moralize about.
If you knew anything about the anti-gay evangelical movement in America you'd probably understand how fucking pointless it is to try to educate or understand it's more ardent followers. People willing to disown their gay children are most unlikely to listen to your preachy ass tell them they were wrong. Of course, you'd probably be so damn busy trying to understand them that you wouldn't dare tell them they were wrong anyway, and you'd end up creating an interpretive dance to explain your experiences to the other self-hating lesbians at the next big vegan pot-luck.*
*hyperbole
-edit-
All you damn hippies read the post above this one.
And I think this arguement needs more quotes from Falwell himself, to illustrate why we despised him so.
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/jerry_falwell/
Here's my favorite three.
“If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being”
“Textbooks are Soviet propaganda”
“AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I think you might be getting somewhat too emotional here. Like I said hatred and disagreement are not the same thing. To not hate someone is not to feel their racist, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-anythingnotchristian is not to feel those things have validity. It's just not having a mindset that allows or encourages anger to the point of shutting out what other people say and think, whether you agree with them or not.
Actually my father was a hippy. These days most people would consider both he and I conservative, on slightly more issues, than liberal.
To steal a phrase: No it fucking doesn't. Hatred of something certainly means wanting to lay it low, but it does not change the nature or substance of your disagrement, anger or opposition. It just incites rage.
Oh, hypothetically they are not. But I have never ever seen it to be otherwise. When you hate someone you are always willing to believe the worst and ignore the noble. And you can't really understand someone with such a skewed viewpoint. I'm telling you, try watching American History X, it's a stellar movie.
I would guess I come off as sanctimonious because you care too much about what other people think. I'm laying out general principles on how I think people should orient their worldview. I've never talked about how you're all terrible people. Even if I were, so what? This is both the internet, and a debate and discourse forum. The whole point of coming here is to talk about things with people that might disagree with you. That's my reason anyway.
I think I'm not getting my point across very well. The most important part isn't others listening to you, it's you listening to others. Chances are others already know and understand the reasons you believe what you believe, and they aren't enough. So it's important to really understand their reasons, without prejudice, if you are going to change their minds. Sometimes you can't, but people usually dont' even try. Which is a shame.
edit: g'night
edit2: seriously? your not going to actually discuss this?
--LeVar Burton
That's pretty much what I got out of that. And I've seen American History X. I thought it was a great shower rape scene, and really weak indictment/possible homoerotic glamorization of neo-nazism.
--LeVar Burton
You mean like skipping the two+ pages of discussion between now and the last time you posted, in their entirity?
And for the record, the reason he was so vehemently anti-teh gays (aside from flagrantly homosexual men violating his well established schemas and perceived gender roles) was because he believed parts of the bible told him to. Whether or not they actually do is debatable, but his whole reasoning can be boiled down to "because the bible says so."
That's the only reason I've ever heard, or rather read, him giving. But dimes to dollars there is something else. And if there isn't, so what? By finding out I lose absolutely nothing, yet have something important to gain; understanding.
Huh? I'm not even sure I understand this. If you restate it for me I'll try to respond tomorrow after work. As it is I'm going to try to go to sleep again. I slept late yesterday, but if I don't fall asleep soon I'm going to be very tired during work.
--LeVar Burton
Understanding that he's a bigoted, homophobic hate mongerer only makes him easier to hate. Knowing his reason for hating doesn't absolve him of being a fuckstick.
Falwell is dead. Good. I think his life was deleterious and I'm glad it's over with.
Don't forget that he never personally murdered anyone, therefore he was actually a pretty decent guy unworthy of being viewed in the same manner as an enemy in war.
Welcome, brother.
I think you've purposefully skipped over the several pages of us addressing why this isn't any sort of false dichotomy. And while calling something "vintage Yar logic" is cute, it doesn't really do anything for the discussion - your logic is just as absurd to me as mine may be to you.
If a guy gets his ass kicked in front of you and $5 falls out of his pocket and you're like, "sweet, $5!" then yes.
And the condom logic only applies if you wanted him to live back when he was alive.
I don't know, your analogies aren't even really thought-provoking or difficult to dismantle. Care to add anything new to this?
As I've pointed out before, there is no requirement that you respect him in death any more than you did in life. And although it isn't for me, I'm sympathetic to the notion of hating someone, if only as part of the psychological healing process for one's own personal traumas.
But celebrating one's death only shows that the hatred and the trauma runs too deep and is unhealthy. As I said, death doesn't faovr your ideas. Sometime you'll die, too. And what's more important between now and then - that more people learn to see things your way, or that more people who don't see things your way, die? The former is productive and progressive, the latter is fruitless and evil.
Death continues for us all, always. And therefore his death doesn't "make the world a better place." His death was always an assumed inevitablility, and it's timing now instead of next week or next year is wholly irrelevant to the larger picture. What would have been relevant is him progessing his own ideas within his own life and disavowing previous ways in favor of encouraging electric cars or whatever the fuck you wished he would preach. Maybe if he hadn't died, that could have happened. You can shit on that idea all you want and claim your superior omniscience that it wouldn't happen, but that doesn't change the equation. Death isn't a victory in a war of ideas. If you think it is, you are part of what's wrong with this world as much as he is.
The fact still remains that this man is demonized politically, not for anything he's ever really done. The concrete things he's done involve rallying a new sector of the Republican base that wasn't very political before. And he wasn't even a sole leading figurehead in that, it was a reactionary movement to the so-called liberation of the late 60s and 70s that would have likely continued with someone else acting as its voice. He's had ideas on segregation and homosexuality that most of us here wouldn't agree with and which history will most likely denounce if it hasn't already. But he was far more compassionate and moderate in those misguided ideas than the man you guys want to believe he was.