Tom Coburn, the odious Republican from Oklahoma, is one of the America-hating pseudopatriots opposing even the lame and neutered health care bill sludgily working its way through the senate, and he recently sent out a call to his teabaggin’* electorate and fellow travelers to pray that “somebody can’t make the vote”, so the Democrats wouldn’t be able to break any filibuster. They responded by prayin’ their little hearts out, and one group even proudly admitted to praying for the death of Democrats.
And it worked! No, nobody died, but someone didn’t make it to the vote.
One catch: the no-show was James Inhofe, the other Republican dimbulb from Oklahoma who opposes health care.
Keep praying! Maybe soon all of the Republicans will go away. Or even better, Holy Joe Lieberman will be ascended into heaven.
*I still snicker over the fact that they actually call themselves that.
Inhofe didn’t make it?
That’s fucking hilarious.
Take that Lieberman
I think they should just pray their butts off. Hey, Rethugs! I’m a voluntarily childless, soy-guzzling, pussy-licking godless heathen! Pray for me until I see the light!
(Meanwhile, the people who actually want to see America keep up with the 21st century will be working.)
The most tempted I am to believe in god is when he appears to stick it to the creationists and others who claim a special relationship with the supposed deity.
It’s never consistent (or unexplainable) enough to believe, however.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
James Inhofe is too busy with actions like going to Copenhagen in order to show that global warming is a fraud. Perhaps he was patrolling the hallways of public schools, making sure that only one girl at a time was using the restroom.
Observations from a citizen of a socialist liberal democracy with universal healthcare…
Teabaggin’*
What does Tom Coburn think it means? Does he have a definition for “turkey slapping” too? I’d love to know.
And did his forefathers change the family name from Cockburn to Coburn because people just didn’t realise Cockburn is pronounced as “Coburn”?
Praying for death: that’s very christianly of them. Ok, so they didn’t pray for the death of a person or people, but jeez! are they so morally and ethically bankrupt that they believe opposing views and open, frank debate is to be avoided lest “satan’s” minions^ be unleashed?
I note that the President Obama tweets his endorsement of the NYT’s editorial’s endorsement of healthcare reform in the US: http://bit.ly/6Z0WXd
*I’m sniggering over “teabaggin’” myself. The rest of the commentary is somewhat diminished!
^Liberal Democrats, obviously, as liberalism and socialism are bad, bad things: the market always knows best, right?
This is the problem with modern religion. They always half-ass it! Why stop at prayer?! What ever happened to good old animal-sacrifices? I mean, at least bring in a shaman tripping on psychedelics wearing face-paint while doing some dances and chants. Geesh.
What is it about southern (and southwestern) states? I’m sure the average I.Q. isn’t any different there.
You can say, and probably correctly: it’s a hold-over from the antebellum South and the Confederacy; but you’d still be left with the question: why has this backwardness persisted so long?
Maybe some insightful American historian has already dealt with this. If so, does anybody here know who?
This kind of reminds me of something I heard a few years back – something like:
With the Results the Republicans have gotten with their War on Drugs and their War on Poverty, perhaps we should unleash them on a War on Polar Bears and other endangered species. With the luck they have, populations should increase immediately.
Or, words to that effect.
JC
As the members of the nation’s extreme right-wing get clued in to the less salubrious definitions of “teabagging,” they are beginning to demand that we stop calling them “teabaggers” and instead refer to them as “Tea Party patriots” or some such bafflegab. My New Year’s resolution, therefore, is never to miss an opportunity to refer to them as “teabaggers”.
Teabaggers! Teabaggers! Teabaggers!
(Ho, ho, ho.)
And I hope they all get visits from Santorum Claus this holiday season.
These teabaggers are one step away from bomb-vests, aren’t they?
As we all know that God hates Obama and every other communist fascist socialist muslim atheist nazi liberal, this must mean that someone was praying wrong, or there were just not enough prayees to change the mind of Him Who Knows Everything In Advance.
I hope all Republicans and their sympathizers go praying not only before, but during and after any decision making process. Taking a break from praying to cast a vote is obviously one break too much.
@#10 – no no no, see – they’re only encouraging people to perish. If they happen to die, that’s God’s WillTM, right?
Aside from the occasional abortion clinic bombing, they’re more akin to the people who encourage the bomb-vests with rhetoric, a la Bin Laden.
Those death prayers keep on backfiring. I think I know what the problem is – no goats on fire!
And, yet, somehow this isn’t evidence that Tom Coburn’s God:
1. Does not exist.
2. Does exist, but doesn’t give a damn about the vote.
3. Does exist and is very much in favor of universal health care*.
4. Does exist and likes to mock people who pray publicly for stuff. Or possibly just Tom Coburn.
* Unlikely given other evidence, but mentioned for completeness.
Oh No!
PZ, look what you’ve done!
Now the members of the huge Bible thumping community who follow the blog are going to be Psalm 109ing Lieberman! :D
Why, oh why, does noöne force the fucking Republans and Liebermann to go through with the bloody filibuster?!
Talk, you bastards! Talk till you soil your pants (without any convenient adult diapers and rentboys with methfilled cracks available to make it as fun for you as usual).
And Jesus said, “When you pray, pray like this:
‘Our Father, who art in Heaven,
Robert Byrd is old,
His views are dumb,
He eats with gums,
Strike him with pneumonia or cold.
And give us this day,
Our Fox News feed,
Forgive us our hate lapses,
As we forgive, well, not atheists or the gays.
And lead us not into socialism,
But deliver us from reason,
For thine is the market, and the teabag, forever,
Amen.'”
Actually they refer to themselves as Tea Party Patriots, members of the Tea Party, or other such terms. Not as Teabaggers.
The term Teabaggers was given to them by liberal news media anchors and others who find it easier to just call the movement a name and hope to ignore them rather than try to engage them in debate.
Why do these Republican good Christians keep forgetting that god has terrible aim when he’s in the smiting mood.
How soon they forget what happened when Dobson asked his followers to “pray for rain of biblical proportions” that would ruin Obama’s outdoor speech at the Democratic Convention last year: Hurricane Gustov rained down instead on the Republican Convention.
And Everyday Atheist wins the internets for the day. Everyone else feel free to go home.
Actually they refer to themselves as Tea Party Patriots, members of the Tea Party, or other such terms. Not as Teabaggers.
That’s the official name, yes, but plenty of the placards and whatnot indicated that they were out “teabagging” and Fox News anchors unironically referred to it as teabagging, which was then mocked by the so-called “liberal news media anchors.”
who find it easier to just call the movement a name and hope to ignore them rather than try to engage them in debate.
Well, engaging them in debate is worthless. But I’m pretty sure that I’d say that for different reasons than you would, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous…
University of Minnesota – Morris, the Harvard of Morris Minnesota; you’re association with this august institution only strengthens your claims, dear sir. I never cease to be amazed at the levels of irrelevance you attain.
@Anonymous — Here’s a simulated debate with a Tea Party “Patriot:”
Anchor #1: The arguement is that health care reform will help cover uninsured people, improving their healthcare and lowering costs for everyone. Your thoughts?
TPP: “Socialism! Obama’s not an American! I’m scared that this country isn’t safe for Christians anymore!”
Yeah, it’s a shame we don’t devote more airtime and column inches to their nuanced views.
@Anonymous #18
I believe the correct term for this statement is “Bollocks”. They may very well be calling themselves that NOW but when they first kicked off the whole tea party farce they did in fact refer to themselves as teabaggers. Much to our amusement.
Curse you blockquote fail!
Actually, they started out by calling themselves Teabaggers, but when everyone started loudly sniggering and they found out what it actually meant, they rapidly stopped using it about themselves.
By then it was waaaay too late and the media (and everyone else) was never going to give up mocking them with it.
I didn’t realize all this blogging stuff was a popularity contest. Oh wait, you’ve trotted out a straw-man. I get it.
Actually, to give god some credit, he did send the blizzard and record snowfall to the D.C. area last weekend. If he had only doubled the 20 or so inches which accumulated, he might have succeeded in at least delaying Senate action.
So, apparently, God’s a letter-of-the-law genie.
Yet another proof that God’s a dick. Gotta love that fellah!
Why are filibusters even allowed as part of the democratic process. As I understand it the conservatives up here in Canada have been using them a great deal recently to jam up committees that won’t bow to their wishes. It just seems like such an anti-democratic waste of time and resources. I don’t understand. =(
God is just testing them. If they’re lucky, he’ll even make people rape all their daughters as part of the test. Hey, don’t scream at me for that one – Francis Collins says rape is good because it is god doing some testing – or something. In fact, there are many places in the bible where god tells his people to go out and rape, murder, and pillage – so it’s gotta be good.
lukeatksg @ 21:
You need to to be re-associated with high school.
Everyday Atheist @ 17, you win an internet. And a cookie.
Tom Coburn said the following in a Wall Street Journal article recently:
This is absolute crap. Diagnostic aspiration of a breast cyst at ANY age is covered by the medical plan in Canada, and I am sure it is covered under all government-run health care systems. Coburn is a disgrace to his profession.
@lose_the_woo: Well, they still have Jan Crouch. She should count as a face-painted, shrieking shaman.
cylusys @ 23 said: ‘They may very well be calling themselves that NOW but when they first kicked off the whole tea party farce they did in fact refer to themselves as teabaggers.’
Nope…
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/04/14/teabagging_guide/
Personally, I would stop with the whole ‘teabagger, teabagger, nanny-nanny-boo-boo’ bit. Eventually one of them will get past his/her religious puritanism enough to throw the sexual innuendo back and suggest if you’re not a teabagger, you must be a teabaggee.
Tsk, tsk. Senator Coburn forgot that wish parsers tend to be a) literal, and b) perverse. He can’t say he didn’t get what he asked for…
@Alyson (#2)
What, your cat can’t clean itself?
(Sorry – couldn’t resist.)
Let’s get you on the record, PZ. Do you think libertarians are “America-hating pseudopatriots?”
Yes or no?
// who find it easier to just call the movement a name and hope to ignore them rather than try to engage them in debate. //
Screaming incoherently over other people trying to talk isn’t debate…no matter how loud the teabaggers scream.
@Antiochus
This Jan Crouch?
(Make sure you are not eating or drinking anything).
They actually call themselves tea-baggers? Seriously? I thought that was coined by someone taking the piss.. That’s pure hilarity.
Lyr: At any point you could debate the merits of the many, many health care articles written by Reason Magazine or the Cato Institute. Have you done this?
Explain to me why Democrats oppose giving the tax benefits they bestow on businesses to individuals purchasing health care. Explain to me why we shouldn’t be permitted by law to buy health insurance over state lines or to choose what types of care we insure ourselves for — I don’t need acupuncture or gastric bypass surgery covered by my policy, do you? Please. Explain.
Or, if you prefer, just pretend that arrogance is skepticism and call me names. That seems to be what “skeptics” do these days. It’s almost…religious.
Thommo: No, they don’t. PZ is just staggeringly ignorant of the media and its tactics. Al Gore never said he invented the internet, either.
lose_the_woo @ #40
That’s just…Fabulous!
BS
“Or, if you prefer, just pretend that arrogance is skepticism and call me names. That seems to be what “skeptics” do these days. It’s almost…religious.”
LOL. Dude, you almost had a good post going there, and then this pathetic strawman reared its stale head.
You get an “F” for flaccid logical fallacies.
David @43: No, they don’t. PZ is just staggeringly ignorant of the media and its tactics. Al Gore never said he invented the internet, either.
Let’s see here…
There’s this one:
http://brendancalling.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/teabag13.jpg
And this one:
http://www.akkamsrazor.com/wp-content/uploads/tea-bag-300×225.jpg
Then there’s that link up in comment #35 that has some examples. It included a link to this post, which seems to be serious:
http://www.reteaparty.com/2009/02/27/rick-santelli-is-as-mad-as-hell-chicago-tea-party/
PZ is just staggeringly ignorant of what is in Health Insurance Reform. The bottom line is that the Federal Government will force people to buy junk health insurance that they can’t afford….beginning in 2014 and over the next ten years it will increase the insurance companies’ cash flow by more than $2 trillion. Maybe PZ likes forcing American women to bend to the wishes of fundies and the Roman Catholic Bishops…this is a horrible piece of corporate welfare that totally screws some of the most vulnerable Americans.
Oh good, here we go….
That depends. Which kind are you, a tax-is-theft libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist libertarian?
David,
I’m having trouble understanding your posts. What are you upset about? (It sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m really not.) Are you mad that this post is about prayer? Do you think it should have been about something else? Did PZ say something specifically that hurt your feelings? I’ve reread your comments several times and I don’t understand them.
Other folks on the blog might be aware of your past comments and have a more coherent picture of what exactly is upsetting you, but I can’t figure it out. It seems like you don’t like the current state of health care. It also seems like you consider yourself a Tea Party guy and you don’t like being called a Teabagger. (For the record, I’ve never called you a teabagger, so don’t be upset at me.)
I’m on my christmas break, so I’m going to tab out and play wow with my buddies, but I’ll tab back sooner or later. Hopefully, I’ll have a better understanding of what is upsetting you.
Again, It sounds like I’m making fun of you. I hate text, because it’s so difficult to measure emotional content. I want you to know I’m sincere in wondering what has you irritated and upset enough to comment multiple times today.
UDO
As is usual for the dishonesty of trolls, david’s reference doesn’t say what he says it says. Why am I still surprised? And no, david. If more of your fellow teabaggers had the reading comprehension for the work of cato, etc, they’d also conclude you’re a moronically self-destructive sociopath.
Also, you don’t get to dictate what you are called. Teabagger is your name and greedy moron troll is your game. Get the fuck over yourself.
In other news, the movement formerly known as the “Tea-baggers” will change their name to the Taint Right party or Ignorant Americans against the Republic.
@David,
The reason buying insurance across state lines is a bad idea:
I’m currently 25. I have few health problems, and my insurance premiums cover older folks that do have serious medical bills. I can’t buy a policy without coverage I don’t need because my state requires coverage of a number of conditions from insurance providers – specifically to prevent people with pre-existing conditions from getting screwed. I’m willing to pay more in my insurance now knowing that if or when I have health problems later I won’t be dropped or have enormous premiums as a result.
If one could buy across state lines, a state could repeal many of these laws to entice healthy people in other states to buy insurance at a lower premium in their state, raising premiums in states that kept the laws. In the end, it would effectively result in significantly less health coverage for most, as those with serious health problems would see their premiums soar.
Yes these regulations are bad for business – it’s restraining the “free” hand of the market.
UDO on david:
Argh, the tail of my comment got cut off:
Yes these regulations are bad for business – it’s restraining the “free” hand of the market.
But a truly free market would be a cruel and harsh reality – hence the need for child labor laws, OSHA, etc. If we as a society determine that a fixed level of medical coverage is necessary for all, we need to do something about it. If not – and medical coverage is a “luxury” as I’ve seen multiple times now – then it should be taxed as one.
Is a looneytarian upset because his America-hating pseudopatriotism is exposed? Just because his ideology is based on “I got mine, fuck you,” there’s no reason to suppose he isn’t a selfish asshole with no regard for anyone besides himself.
Sorry for the blockquote fail.
Red-edison said (paraphrasing:
“I’m willing to pay more now to ensure I won’t be dropped later in life.”
Exactly. It’s because arguments for universal healthcare are this simple and obvious that the davids of the world get treated with so much contempt.
I’m all for dropping the “teabagger” moniker. The innuendo is a bit misleading. Just call them cock-suckers. It’s a bit more direct and should alleviate any doubts regarding their fixation.
I haven’t attended any of the tea parties, although perhaps I should have. For eight years I felt a kinship with the liberal side of politics, in opposition to the war, to the Republican’s views on gay marriage, and their arrogant refusal to debate the issues. Now here we are with a Democratic administration, and we’re still at war, we still have the Patriot Act, we’re still locking up people for smoking marijuana in their homes, and we still have a president who hates gay people either personally or as a safe political position (I don’t care which motivation is truly his when they both lead to the same outcome).
My objection here is to the belief that just because you opposed the religious right, you have been issued some kind of magical moral license to act EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THEY DID FOR EIGHT YEARS. Did you not tire of the arrogance coming from the White House all of that time? The demonization of people who opposed the Iraq war? We were told we were anti-American, we wanted our country to fail, blah blah blah, it never ended for eight years.
There have been many thoughtful views in opposition of government-run health care, plenty of suggested alternatives, and yet the collective response I hear from skeptics is something along the lines of “those crazy racist religious teabaggers just want people to die.” I don’t see the difference between this posting by PZ and anything coming out of the Bush administration for eight years.
The tea parties were put on by people who oppose big government. I oppose it for the same reasons that Penn Jillette and other libertarian, atheist skeptics oppose it. The tea parties, whether you like it or not, were as strongly in opposition to the Republicans currently in office as they were to the Democrats. The Republicans are actually scared of the movement — they’ve talked of drafting a new candidate in Kentucky now that Rand Paul, a libertarian Republican, has taken the lead in polling. But instead of debating libertarian issues, those who opposed the politics of the tea partiers decided to mock them with the “teabaggers” label or to paint them as racists because a few people showed up with offensive signs. But skeptics know that there are many people out there who believe in flying saucers, 9/11 inside jobs and moon hoaxes who label themselves “skeptics” and could just as easily be used as straw men to attack the skeptical community in lieu of actually debating our ideas. We should stick to debating the ideas.
That’s my problem. If you want to debate the issues of government-run health care like grown-ups, please, let’s do it. But if you think that being an atheist or a skeptic or a liberal gives you the right to name-call, to be offensive and hateful, you should expect to be called out for it. I presume we’re all or mostly all atheists here — we should know we’re not special, that there’s no magical being floating above us justifying us acting like arrogant assholes. Treat each other with respect and treat the opposition with respect, even the worst of them, or you become them.
Okay, I’m leaving this thread. I’ve had enough with the name-calling. Bye.
David:
‘Tis the season for concern trolls?
@#58, David-
The first problem is that most of your Tea Party Patriots spend their time screaming about how Obama is destroying America or is the antichrist. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to debate someone like that. My father’s sister – an ardent Tea Party member and Fox News addict – told me flat out that she thinks Obama is destroying America. How can one debate something so inane?
Second, comparing health care reform to the Iraq war is nonsensical. Saying “I oppose a war we should not be starting, and we have been given poor justifications from our leaders as to why exactly this war is necessary” is very different than “I oppose health care reform because it might cost me money. Those that are too poor for health care but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid should just deal with it.”
Your first paragraph makes a compelling point, though. Obama has not done enough in his first year to address many of the promises he made in his campaign. Some of them would be difficult, if not impossible, to do quickly (drug legislation and the Patriot Act require the cooperation of Congress), but he could have easily ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell by now. Why he hasn’t is anyone’s guess.
Loose the woo:
Oo la, la. Smokin’ hot!
Uh oh. Urp… blorp… splat.
Ugh…
We should have taken your advice about not eating before looking at that picture.
She actually looks OK, relatively speaking, without the pound of quik-set cement she usually uses for makeup.
Love the hair.
Thanks David, it’s just not Christmas without a troll who flounces off.
You just go right ahead and suckle at the teat of conservative teabagggers – you’ll get all the
milk of human kindnessbile you’ll ever want.This is so wrong. Obama is a Kenyan Moslem Terrorist born outside the USA. He is also black although how he is black with a white mother isn’t often explained.
He is only the antichrist when the Pope isn’t busy being the antichrist.
It is hard to take the teabaggers seriously when they are obvious lunatic fringers.
Teabaggers main point. Obama is a Kenyan Moslem Terrorist who was born being black and the antichrist. I think I left something out but whatever. Maybe he is an evolutionist too.
David:
So where were their members from 2000 – 2008 when government became positively obese under GWB? Where were they during GWB’s 8 year drunken borrow and spend spree?
Some of us simply can’t respect the teabaggers (yeah we said it) until they own up to their hypocrisy.
And one more thing. Why do the teabaggers have so many racists in their ranks?
Yeah! Teach the controversy!
Sorry, David. Respect is earned, not automatically owed, and your teabaggers have failed to do so. Vapid platitudes presented as self-evident truths are just as wrong in politics as they are in religion.
David,
To echo many of the posters here, I have to say that most of what you state as gospel truth is completely the opposite of my direct experience with those participating in the teabagger community (immediate family members).
My experience is as follows:
– They are very religious, overwhelmingly xtian
– They only participate because they hate Obama, not because they understand the issues.
– They love Sarah Palin who’s demonstrated a full range of ineptitude many times while wearing her smug smile.
– They invent lies like “Death Panels”.
– They trot out a litany of misleading falsehoods in typical Gish Gallop fashion when “debating”.
– They look solely to Faux News as their bastion of political canards and ideological directives.
I’m sure there are others. But the basic point I’d like to make is that they’re drawing their conclusions based on their religious-based ideology. That is not a trustworthy stance IMO. Of course I see you say the same thing about the skeptics. Well, maybe, instead of Gish-Galloping through a litany of un-cited assertions in your posts, pick a specific one, with citation, for discussion. That’s how honest, proportionate debate should happen.
David,
Thanks for clarifying your frustrations for me. I think I understand where you’re coming from on this issue.
I hope I don’t get beaten down for this next part. I see it all the time in these threads where when one person asks that people stop calling them names, and two or three people pile on them and start calling them concern trolls. It’s kind of stupid to overuse the concern troll label in my opinion.
On one hand I see its validity. When someone complains that their ‘evidence free’ ideas aren’t being given the proper respect, and that the lack of respect given somehow invalidated the arguments against those silly ideas, I can understand saying “your concern is noted now piss off.” But it doesn’t make sense to me to use the same concern troll reply when a person asks that they not be treated rudely or called names.
It’s possible that if you were face to face with someone you’d call them all kinds of insulting names, but I tend to doubt it. There is something about this format that makes personal rudeness acceptable. I’m not calling anyone out, and I’m certainly not telling anyone that they are rude therefore their arguments are invalid. When I construct my own personal comments, I try to phrase them in a way that I would feel comfortable saying out loud at a neighborhood picnic, or office party.
Anyway, feel free to note my concern. (Tabbing back over to try some random heroics)
Dear David,
Too bad you did not address the issue of effectiveness of prayer in politics, which this thread is about.
But you did add to my knowledge. The right are “afraid of” the teabaggers? The teabaggers are “against” the republicans? Too bad no one at Fox News seems to have noticed.
Not to mention that that Marxist Leninist government run insurance plan has been dropped anyways. Yep, no one would even listen to the critics of that plan.
Please don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
At this point, Democrats ought to oppose the health care bill. It’s become a whimpering shadow of its former self (with a lot more paper) and should be put out of its misery.
Well…
From here.
Suffice it to say the health care bill is now little more than a sellout to the insurance industry that will make life worse for the people it’s supposed to help. All the good parts are gone, while the evil (mandates) remain.
Trying to have a “discussion” with teabaggers is an exercise in futility. As lose_the_woo pointed out (#67) from personal experience with family members who are “Tea Party Patriots,” rational discourse is all but impossible with people who think Sarah Palin is a great political leader and that Obama is a foreign-born Marxist operative. I’ve had the same experience in my family. You may as well debate evolution with a creationist.
And permit me to point out that the self-described “patriots” were only to happy to be called teabaggers until they found out why people were smirking. For example, back in May 2009 they were basking in the warmth of Neil Cavuto’s tribute to teabaggers on Fox, and bragging about it on Free Republic.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/22/818021/-Teabagger-fears-he-prayed-Inhofe-to-death‘
enjoy
little sh*t pz thinks he can debunk God..
you are going to be tortured and murdered without mercy…
Looks like your website is under attack from supernatural forces…
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=2&subcatid=7&threadid=3449994
you really need to add comment moderation to your blasphemy…
The sad thing is that Coburn’s little tirade will only make him more endearing to the people in Oklahoma who keep voting for him. The same goes for Inhofe and his global warmging denialism. These two nitwits continually raise the bar on stupid.
But, the people of Oklahoma keep voting for these guys in spite of the fact that they work to the detriment of the majority of people who live in the state.
Man, I need to move.
Hey, come on, cut Me some slack! I created man in My image and to err is human. Connect the dots.