Case in point: Representative Brad Sherman, a Jewish Democrat from California. He had some advice for Jane Yellen on the timing of interest rate changes.
God’s plan is not for things to rise in the autumn. As a matter of a fact, that’s why we call it fall. Nor is it God’s plan for things to rise in the winter through the snow. God’s plan is that things rise in the spring. So, if you want to be good with the Almighty, you might want to delay until May.
He proudly tweeted a summary.
Urged Janet Yellen not to raise interest rates now. https://t.co/O68I9tgJTa God's plan is things rise in spring, not winter.
— Brad Sherman (@BradSherman) November 4, 2015
So don’t make souffles in the fall. Guys, if you have a disappointing performance in the bedroom, just tell your partner that it was God’s plan. All flags must be at half-mast during the fall. I’m going to start sleeping in — it’s fall, we’re not supposed to rise.
Sherman, despite having a liberal view on many things, is a fool. And his foolishness is derived from his religiosity.
Since the measure the quote supports is the more reasonable course of action than what is wanted by the opposition I would allow him some poetic license.
lff
I would allow him some poetic license.
Why not support the sensible policy and laugh at the bullshit? Otherwise you’re rewarding him for being stupid – that’s just going to give you more stupid.
What other aspects of fiscal or monetary policy does God have opinions on? What’s his view on QE tapering? Inquiring minds want to know!
Rep. Sherman, I suggest you have a chat with your God about crocuses. Someone fucked up there.
Maybe he’s going for, “right thing for wrong reasons”. That is arguing against raising interest rates (might be) a good thing to argue for, yet throwing in “heritage myths” as justification (rationalization?) is the wrong way to argue for it. Senators though, should be way beyond such adolescent thinking styles.
[funny (ie odd), that this comes right after reading about Michelle Bachman saying how all Jews should be converted to xianity, toute suite, a~s~a~p. {“jew” being the synchronicity} ]
Are you sure you have the causality right here? It seems just as likely that his religion is justifying his foolishness.
Yeast, that beast, still rises in the fall, despite God’s will. The sun also rises. Truly the devil’s work.
fredfile:
Meh. It is possible to want the right things for the wrong reasons. And honestly, bumblefucks like this guy, making asinine arguments in favor of the best course of action often wind up damaging the credibility of that course of action. Poetic license doesn’t cut it here, in my opinion. What would cut it is if I thought this were a bizarre attempt to speak to God-bothering, pea-brained Republicans in their own language. If you see any indications that that was the case, let me know.
re 4:
ha ha, good point. Sherman may also want to talk to Gawd about Carson’s poll numbers rising in the fall.
talk about the Supreme AFU’er. Gawd told Carson to run (according to Carson. Would a liar fib?) Carson tells us Gawd Hisself is rising his poll results to ensure Carson hisself is crown majestic President of USA.
what could go wrong …
slithey tove:
If only. If only.
It vividly reminded me of this.
It doesn’t sound to me like a person going from religious belief to proposed action, but rather talking about a proposed action in religious metaphor. He’s not saying “you must do this because my god commands it,” he’s making a religiously based joke alongside arguments for his position. It’s very typical of a certain flavor of Jewish commentary that is perfectly compatible with secularism.
Yup, I was wrong and qwints is right. All indications are that it was only, simply, meant as a joke, not as a serious argument.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-ca-pol-brad-sherman-janet-yellen-gods-plan-20151104-htmlstory.html
He does have a rare and interesting sense of humor.
https://twitter.com/BradSherman/status/647036326731235328
https://twitter.com/BradSherman/status/621061358705098752
https://twitter.com/BradSherman/status/545257790353457152
The kind of humor one can expect from a politician who specializes in fiscal policy.
The war on Christmas has already started.
We are not allowed to rise the christmas tree in December.
luckily this is only the case in the English speaking countries.
Isn’t this Peter Seller’s line from Being There? “In the spring will come growth.”
jcsscj @ 13:
Really? Who is stopping you from doing so? (So far, the Xmas police have failed to show up and take the Ratmas tree away.)
ack. anyone how rises a Solstice Tree before the holy Thanksgiving feast needs to be thrown in prison till New Year. And be sure to pull down those outside xmas lights well before Easter, and not lit before Dec 1. One can hang them early in preparation, but do not lite them before December.
This should be laws rather than jaywalking laws.( pfft, okay, ‘zoning ordinances’ rather than criminality, yet …)
ack. I sometimes just enjoy playing grumpy old curmudgeon…
In the wake of any life-altering tragedy, the believers always roll out the “God’s plan” tropes, and I would never seek to deny those suffering anything that helps them cope with the enormous pain they must be feeling. But that is one of the first things that drove me to atheism as a child, because if that’s how God plans things, God is undeniably a giant inflamed self-important ruthless asshole. It was one of the most obvious disconnects between the God was portrayed and the way God is supposedly manifesting “him”self on us. So, let’s keep God’s plans out of congress, thank you.
Congressman Sherman and Yahweh apparently are unaware of the southern hemisphere, things happen a little differently there.
Sounds to me like a lame attempt at humor.
I used to be a “wait until the second week of December to do anything xmasy” person, but then one year I decided fuck it, November is a dark and dreary month, and it’s not a sacred holiday to me any more, and winter sucks in general. I’m glad to see twinkly lights and cheer for as much of the dismal season as we can .
Am I missing something? What’s the relevance of his Judaism?
carlie@20: In my neighborhood, some people put up twinkly lights for Halloween. In November they swap the jack-o-lanterns and ghosts and fake spiderwebs for cornstalks and keep the orange lights. After Thanksgiving they swap the lights to other colors.
(I hope they hang two different strings of lights simultaneously and just switch off which ones are plugged in. Otherwise that’s a lot of work!)
I was kind of irked by the Halloween lights at first, in a kind of “We can’t even wait another month?” exasperation, but now I think it’s kind of cool. It’s holiday lights, so who can object without also objecting to Christmas lights? Yet it’s for a holiday that many uber-religious Christians object to. Must be quite a quandary for them, which is all to the good as far as I’m concerned.
joke or not (probably was) I think it would be better if the stock market did not fear an eminent interest rate increase so much it might not react so negatively
uncle frogy
@regcheeseman:
Since Rep Sherman himself identifies his religion as Judaism, IF Sherman believed the big G-D was demanding interest rates “fall” in autumn, it would presumably be a Jewish religious belief that led to that idiocy.
Since we call out idiocy that is based in Christianity specifically as Christian idiocy, calling this out as Jewish idiocy was mere even-handedness back before we realized that this was just Sherman’s idiosyncratic sense of humor and not a genuine religious belief.
Frankly, my sense of humor is perverse enough (and I’ve spent enough time in shuls and synagogues) that I suspected from the get-go that Sherman was being silly, not religious.* But that’s not how PZ initially took it, and leaving it reasonably attributable to Christianity (given that that is the majority USA religion) would have been unfair of PZ from his initial standpoint in writing this post.
=======
*Actually, it’s clear that Sherman and I share a bit in the department of humor-theory and comedic tendencies. I didn’t laugh at this one, but if I had been more confident Sherman’s statements were actually meant as a joke, I certainly would have done.
I get that it was a lame attempt at humor, but I have one word for this guy:
Australia. ;)
Assuming it’s not a lame attempt at humor, I don’t see what his religiosity has to be the cause of his foolishness.
Case in point: there’s plenty of religious people who’d consider his statement utter foolishness AND plenty of non-religious people who’d happily apply the same inane logic not very different ways.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise; except in autumn, just don’t get out of bed at all in autumn.”
Tides rise in the fall. In fact, I believe that the tides come in and the tides go out. I’ve heard that God has something to do with it.
Maybe Brad Sherman and Bill O’Reilly could debate what should or shouldn’t rise in the fall. You know, according to God…
I have never heard of this line of thinking before in my entire life. Never have I heard that we should be basing our building and destroying cycles on the freakin’ seasons. What is he, some sort of druid?
@18
@25
However, Sherman, and if Yahweh existed, it too, are both aware that precious little of the southern hemisphere and none of Australia fall under the jurisdiction of the United States Federal Reserve.
Hey, if this bugs, it bugs. Fair enough. But I lean toward those who view this as a humorous and/or poetic flourish. When you are trying to talk someone out of doing something dumb, it’s not uncalled for to throw every rhetorical device you can think of into your arguments. I’m sure all the pragmatic factual arguments were also made, by Sherman or others.
The rules of Congressional testimony from Fed chiefs are rather peculiar. The Congressman is simply attempting to exploit a loophole in an attempt to provoke the Fed chief to make a statement by presenting the question in an unexpected fashion.