And things of that nature.
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Way to go out on a limb, Oliver, what with republicans in the White House, and all.
Wimpy.
Heh! “And things of that nature”– great reference to King George I.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits,
and humbly to implore his protection and favors
– George Washington (Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789)
Ecch, troll wants to play quote-fu.
Fine.
“The United States is in no sense founded upon Christian Doctrine” — George Washington
goatmuncher: The quote says “Almighty God”, not Jesus Christ
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
Abraham Lincoln
Oh, and BTW, you’re the troll, not me.
“Troll: a newsgroup post that is deliberately incorrect, intended to provoke readers; or a person who makes such a post”
Um, Frank, that’s you in a nutshell.
Gee, frameone, where did you get that definition? How clever of you to find it in just two hours.
I find it interesting that I’m considered a troll simply because I have a different opinion. It’s too bad they don’t have a word for a post that has nothing whatever to do with the topic, but, instead, is aimed at another poster. They could call it, say, a “frameone.”
One, it’s patently obvious where I got the definition from. Isn’t that why you posted the link?
Two, you’re a troll not because you have different opinion but because the vast majority of your posts are “deliberately incorrect” and “intended to provoke.”
Deliberately incorrect?
All posts are intended to provoke — aren’t yours?
Oh I should point out that it looks like Goat took up your tactics in order to deliberately mock them and highlight their patent dishonesty. You took the bait and now you’re just flopping around at the bottom of the Goat boat.
When you get down to it, you called Goat a troll for doing exactly what you yourself did — quoting the founding fathers out of context with the aim of provoking other readers — then you linked to a definition of “troll” that suits you just as well. Your rhetorical strategy boggles the mind.
Oh so now you’ve changed your response to discuss the actual definition that you supplied? Good for you Frank. Yes, a lot of posts are aimed at provocation. The distinction being the issue of their being deliberately incorrect part. In your case the examples are legion. Let’s just look at this thread.
By pulling quotes from the founding fathers without context or comment you aim to present a deliberately incorrect picture of both Washington and Lincoln’s religious views. Then you turn around and jump on me for following a link to a definition you supplied. Deliberately incorrect or just patently dishonest and stupid?
Or are you now going to argue with the definition that you yourself supplied?
Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
http://www.barefootsworld.net/thanksgiving.html
a real document — read the whole text
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
http://members.aol.com/calebj/proclamation.html
a real document — read the whole text
Wherever Washington’s quote by goatmuncher is found, it is unattributed. I wonder why?
But that’s exactly what you did! Goatchowder called you a troll and you shot back “No, I’m not you are.”
The religious views of Washington and Lincoln are far more nuanced and sophisticated than cherry picking speeches and quotations suggest. Indeed, that’s why it’s so easy to cherry pick quotes and speeches removed from the political and cultural realities in which they were spoken. Unless you’re prepared to explain how the speeches you cite were understood at the time they were spoken within the context of Lincoln and Washington’s political careers – in short, do the work of a historian — you are little more than a fire bomb throwing hack. It should also be noted that historians are divided on the religious beliefs of the founding fathers, particularly in the case of Lincoln: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/25.1/noll.html
Oh, I see. Goatmuncher pulls a quote off of a “keep the Church out of politics, when the Church isn’t liberal” site, unattributed and uncorobborated, and I have to provide context.
Incidentally, the reference to a review of a book leads me to ask, “How do I know anything about the author?” Should I assume that this author knows more about Lincoln than nayone that has written about him?
Also, where did you and goatmuncher get the idea that Washington and Lincoln were proselytizing Christians? Not from me. I only meant to say that Thanksgiving was proclaimed to be a special day for thanking God, by two different Presidents. That’s why I said goatmuncher was deliberately incorrect, and his post designed to provoke.
If anybody got sucked in, frameone, it was you. All the “evidence” that the Presidents, or the Founding Fathers didn’t believe in organized religion, or Jesus Christ, fails to mention that they all believed in God. All the “documentation” is found (surprise, surprise) out of context, on sites dedicated to humanism and atheism
If you can find :
Abraham Lincoln and American Civil Religion: A Reinterpretation
Melvin B. Endy, Jr.
Church History, Vol. 44, No. 2. (Jun., 1975), pp. 229-241.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-6407%28197506%2944%3A2%3C229%3AALAACR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y
You’ll find that Lincoln became much less of a cynic and skeptic as he grew older, something I’m familiar with, and you are not.
All right, so I guess your relativistic point is that no quote has meaning unless we are totally immersed in the person’s life and thought. Fine.
So that ends that.
I don’t need to explain or defend myself. After all, if I explain myself, you’ll disagree (funny you can speak for goatmuncher and me — how do you do it?); and, if I defend myself, you’ll probably start insulting me.
You win.
Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t forget to thank whatever you think is important for providing you with whatever you think is important.
“I don t need to explain or defend myself.”
That’s so funny. That’s basically what Dugger said when he ran out of bullshit in defense of torture. You guys are too much. As soon as you run out of crap to spin you play the vitcim and start whining that you don’t need to explain or defend yourselves. You damn well do if you’re going to post something on a public thread board with the aim of provoking a response.
“If I defend myself, you ll probably start insulting me.”
Maybe if you defended your argument with anything approaching honesty or reason I wouldn’t start insulting you. Just look at how flimsy and whiny your defense is here: How is it relativistic to fix the meaning of a quote through reference to the personal and historical context of an individual’s life? That’s called responsible research and history, Frank. It isn’t a guarantee of absolute truth but it is the surest safeguard against the scurilous and lazy who would simply make a quote mean what they want it to mean. If I didn’t have to refer to the personal and historical context of General William T. Sherman, I could argue that when he said “There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell” he was arguing in favor of pacifism. Right?
You see Frank, here’s why discussions with you are so pointless. Number one it’s pretty clear that I was not priviledging Goat’s comments over yours at all. Indeed, while I don’t know what was in Goat’s head, it seems obvious that he was lampooning your tactic of emplying cherry picked quotes, not actually adopting that tactic himself. But, of course, since you have no sense of irony and even less a sense of proportion, you thought that he was adopting your tactics and responded in kind with yet another cherry picked quote. Additionally you did indeed play “I know you are but what am I” and produced a definition of troll that suited your tactics in this thread better than anybody.
But what’s so typical of your confused and pointless posts is that it isn’t until, like a dozen or so posts in, that anyone can even begin to guess what it is you “only meant to say.” How coudl Goatmuncher be “deliberately incorrect” when you never bothered to state what your point was in the first place. You just threw out a quote from Washington acknowledging “the Almighty.” If this was just a neutral quotation in the spirit of the season, how was anyone supposed to glean that given your initial post:
“Way to go out on a limb, Oliver, what with republicans in the White House, and all. Wimpy.”
Quite frankly I have no idea what you are even talking about here. All Oliver did was say “Happy Thanksgiving.” What’s so wimpy about that? But if your point was that two American presidents proclaimed Tahnksgiving to be a special day for thanking God, why did you feel the need to make that point at all? No one had even mentioned presidents or atheism or anything before you deemed it necessary to interject with a quote, the significance of which you entirely failed to explain.
I should also point out in conclusion that the thesis of the article you provided in your latest post is directly contradicted by the article I cited. Endy, writing in 1975, asserts that:
“As the war lengthened and brought a much wide path of destruction than he had anticipated, Lincoln, rather than question the North’s and his own motives and assumptions, about the war and its rightesousness, increasingly reassured himself that all was for the best and that God’s purposes were being served.”
Note that Endy goes on to quote Lincoln in a speech from 1863 to support his claim. And yet Noll, in his review of Stewart Winger’s 2003 history, Lincoln, Religion, and Romantic Cultural Politics:
” Winger’s own conclusions, along with his strictures against other historians, carry weight because they are based on careful interpretation of Douglas and Bancroft as Lincoln’s ideological opponents, deep understanding of the intellectual history of antebellum religion and politics, and close readings of Lincoln’s own key statements from the 1830s through to the Second Inaugural Address.
Still, some questions remain.One concerns Winger’s account of what lay behind the succinct, but stunning, declaration concerning the mysteries of an all-wise providence in the Second Inaugural. Winger discerns a major change in Lincoln’s attitude toward the status of the United States as taking place only in the difficult summer of 1864, with Grant stalled before Richmond and Sherman not yet triumphant in Georgia. Before then, according to Winger, Lincoln’s romantic nationalism, while tempered in comparison to Bancroft’s, was still vigorous. If the United States was not the chosen nation, it was the home (in a pre-presidential phrase) of “the almost chosen people.” Thus, in Winger’s view, the Gettysburg Address of late 1863 was “the apex in the development of Lincoln’s Romantic nationalism” (202). Only in the disappointments of mid-1864 did Lincoln conclude that, in fact, God could probably get along without the United States, and it was this opinion that lay behind his assertion in March 1865 that “The Almighty has His own purposes.” Alternatively, however, it could be suggested that the skein of reasoning leading up to the Second Inaugural began much earlier. In September 1862, Lincoln not only made his uncharacteristically specific reading of providence before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, but he also wrote the private memorandum that Hay and Nicolay later labeled a “meditation on divine will.” Doubts about the messianic character of the United States were fully evident in this document’s conclusion that “In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.”1 Such evidence suggests that, from a time fairly early in the war, Lincoln’s awareness of an unfathomably mysterious providence had already begun to contest his belief in the divine destiny of the United States.”
So you’ll find that historians are at odds about what to make of Lincoln’s religious beliefs and that the complexity of the arguments on either side are such that your strategy of presenting quotes without context and commentary is utterly pointless. A state of being I know you must be intimately familiar with.
You were expecting……?
If you weren’t such an intellectually bully, it would be easier to respond. If your comments were less than a thousand words, it might be a little easier to respond. If your comments were more about what you thought, and less about what you think I think, it would be easier to respond.
But please let me try.
1) Indeed, while I don t know what was in Goat s head, it seems obvious that he was lampooning your tactic of simplying cherry picked quotes, not actually adopting that tactic himself. But, of course, since you have no sense of irony and even less a sense of proportion, you thought that he was adopting your tactics and responded in kind with yet another cherry picked quote.
a) You do not know what was in goat’s head.
b) It may seem obvious to you that “he was lampooning your tactic of simplying cherry picked quotes”, but I didn’t think so. {Now is your cue for an insult — I’m either lying or stupid, right, frame?}
c) The insults have already begun — I “have no sense of irony and even less a sense of proportion [?]”
d) Actually, I thought he went and found a quote, and that the quote was inappropriate. I followed it with this comment {not a “a dozen or so posts in”}: “goatmuncher: The quote says Almighty God , not Jesus Christ”, the point being that Washington was not referring to Christianity, but to thanking God on Thanksgiving. If you’re so good at grasping subtleties, then why didn’t you grasp two simple things:
i) Oliver’s “Thanksgiving Message” was wimpy because he didn’t thank anything or anybody for anything; and
ii) I was making the point that the original intention of Thanksgiving Day was to thank God because we live in a free and great country.
Now, it’s your turn to attack, er, um, I mean respond
Wimpy because he didn’t thank God? Oliver doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving the way you think it ought to be celebrated so you have to suggest that he’s being unAmerican or something by referring to two US presidents? I’m glad you finally cleared that up. We finally know just how petty and churlish a person you really are. What a way to respond to someone wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving. And you have the gall to accuse me of resorting to name calling.
“The quote says Almighty God , not Jesus Christ.” Goatmuncher pulled a quote that mentioned Christianity so you point out that Washington didn’t say “Thank Jesus”? It’s hard to know what the difference is given what you have revealed about the pedantic nature of your original intent. No doubt you would have been satisfied if Oliver had posted “Happy Thankgiving — Thank Allah (or Buddha or Krisha or Whoever) for your blessings.” Yes, certainly you would have been fine with that. Maybe you should include more words in your comments so people could know what the hell it is you’re trying to say.
As for the intellectual bully, is that your stock response to the facts? I thought you were supposed be in graduate school. Hasn’t anybody told you what a literature review is yet or taught you the proper way to conduct research? Try not beginning with a preconceived notion and stop your research when you find verification for it. Intellectual bully. If you beleive so strongly in what you believe why do back down so quickly when you are presented with a counterfactual argument? Where’s the courage of your convictions?
Thank you for your usual, well thought out response.
Not the least bit surprising — or edifying.
Can’t you ever be the least bit original?
For crying out loud, frame. The same crap over and over. The name calling, the bullying — yes, bullying; the “mind reading”, the misinterpretation.
You should be ignored. I, like a fool, get roped into your BS every time. I don’t know why I bother.
I make a simple statement like “Hey, Oliver — thank somebody for something,” and I end up brawling with you over whether Lincoln was a practicing Christian.
I didn’t even say Oliver should thank God or Jesus, but somehow I end up “petty and churlish” for saying something I didn’t say.
Let me tell you what I think of you.
I don’t have the courage of my convictions? I fought in a goddam war, sonny. I’m raising two children. I’m in graduate school. I’m involved in a historical campaign to elect the first black woman President.
What are you doing, hot stuff? Writing pussy “film reviews” for a two bit La La Land weekly? In the company of heroes like Rex Reed, Gene Shalit, and Roger Ebert — oooh! So impressive
You’ve got to turn your fucking head around before you pull it out of your ass. You hardly ever know what you’re talking about, and you almost never know what I’m talking about, but you rant and rave like a fucking maniac over the smallest things. And then you pretend you’re superior to me?
I’ll bet I know what bugs you, sonny. Deep down inside you know that I’m smarter than you, and that pisses you off. No one is supposed to be smarter than Paulie, right? But I am.
I was, and I always will be. You have to do a lot more than go to the movies to learn what I know, kid.
A lot more.
Ultimately, you say we should thank God for America because in 1863 Lincoln said we should. But many historians have argued that in his Second Inaugural in 1865 Lincoln revealed a profound change in his thinking about the place of the United States in divine providence. In his Second Inaugural Lincoln says:
“Both [sides of the war] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes … Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Endy, the guy you lin to, argues that “Too much has been read in to the Second Inaugural.” He argues that Lincoln was not ascribing ambiguity to the North’s cause but rather arguing that God had greater plans for the war than even the North had set out to accomplish — namely, the end of slavery. Nevertheless, Endy argues that Lincoln felt the North’s cause was the “last best hope of Earth” [Endy's words] and that should the North fail, “the world would be without its beckoning star.” [Endy's words again].
But Endy can only argue this by referring to statements made by Lincoln BEFORE the Second Inaugural. He also has to ignore Lincoln’s conclusion, quoted above, that if it is God’s will for the United States to be destroyed utterly in this conflict, so be it.
Winger, the guy I link to, points out that this idea of America’s possible insignificance in God’s plan emerged even early than the Second Inaugural:
“Only in the disappointments of mid-1864 did Lincoln conclude that, in fact, God could probably get along without the United States, and it was this opinion that lay behind his assertion in March 1865 that “The Almighty has His own purposes.” Alternatively, however, it could be suggested that the skein of reasoning leading up to the Second Inaugural began much earlier. In September 1862, Lincoln not only made his uncharacteristically specific reading of providence before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, but he also wrote the private memorandum that Hay and Nicolay later labeled a “meditation on divine will.” Doubts about the messianic character of the United States were fully evident in this document’s conclusion that “In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party.”1″
Which brings me to my point that Lincoln’s call to thank God on Thanksgiving has a far more complicated meaning for Lincoln and America at the time than you imply. You are using Lincoln’s quote dishonestly to browbeat Oliver for not being American enough in his celbration of Thanksgiving but Lincoln’s own understanding of God and divine providence is in marked opposition to the view of many so-called Christian leaders today. In using Lincoln to suggest that Oliver has to, must, thank God if he’s to celebrate Thanksgiving correctly as an American you are abusing historical truth. Yet when I point all this out to you I’m being long winded and an intellectual bully.
Give it a rest, Paulie, you’re looking foolish now.
That was quite a hissy fit Frank.
Let me try to get this straight. You have the right to call Oliver a wimp for not celebrating Thanksgiving the way you think he should celebrate it because you are raising two children? Is that the thrust of your argument? You put your big brain on overdrive and that’s what you came up with?
You called Oliver a wimp for not “thanking somebody for something but maybe Oliver does thank somebody, even God, for something at the dinner table. Maybe he just doesn’t feel the need to loudly and publicly declare his religiosity or thankfulness the way you do. Maybe he also doesn’t feel the need to equate his religiosity or thankfulness with his Americanness the way you do. Which is hilarious because one of the president’s you quote to do this, Lincoln, prfoundly shifted his feelings about the relationship between America’s existence and God’s will over the course of his life, so the two historians I link to suggest.
But then again, I notice also that you backed off your original use of those quotations. At first it was all about how “Thanksgiving was proclaimed to be a special day for thanking God” but now you don’t care who Oliver thanks. That’s what I meant by the courage of your convictions. As soon as someone calls you on your bullshit you backtrack, backpeddle and cry foul.
Face it Frank, you come to the fight with nothing and you always leave in a red-faced, playground huff.
What did you mean when you wrote this:
“Way to go out on a limb, Oliver, what with republicans in the White House, and all. Wimpy.”
Always with the pseudo – intellectual anal – ysis.
Keep it simple. If you want to get something straight, ask me, don’t tell me.
Ask me a question, and I’ll answer it. Make a statement, and I’ll respond.
Tell me what you think I think, but get it wrong, and I get pissed off.
And as for your courage, you’re still hiding behind a typewriter, and still distorting everything I say, because you actually have nothing to say.
What did I back down from, asshole? An academic “debate” over Lincoln’s Christianity? How stupendously ridiculous! As I said before, I made a simple friggin’ comment, and you regurgitate a pseudo – intellectual treatise.
What happened? Nowhere to go for Thanksgiving? You should have found your way to a soup kitchen; you might have learned something about real life.
By the way, I’m keenly aware of the portions of my posts you ignore so you can make your sophomoric “points”. You might be fooling your fellow lefties, but you’re not fooling me.
I meant it was a “limp -wristed” Thanksgiving greeting. People usually are grateful for having a good year, or grateful for our troops in the Middle East, or thankful for something. I was sarcastically suggesting that Oliver could have been grateful for something, even though Republicans were in the White House.
Small joke, huge consequences, eh?
Frank, it is you who now sounds wimpy. How can you be bullied on the net? Did your laptop steal your lunch money, or start a rumour about you that wasn’t true. Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone else by the way.
Apropos of nothing, I just found out (in a trick question in a quiz) that George Washington was about the 15th president. I can’t remember who was 1st, but John Hancock was the 2nd. The question was skilfully worded so that the continental congress or some such could be included. There’s a similar quetion with kings called James in the UK (he was James the first of England, but James the sixth of Scotland).
It took you 30 posts to finally clearly articulate what it was you meant to say and you meant it as a joke? And what a joke! I mean, damn, Frank, your “joke” doesn’t make any sense in large part because it has no premise.
Oliver said “Happy Thanksgiving.” But for your joke to be funny — or make any sense whatsoever — you have to assume that when he said, “Happy Thanksgiving,” he wasn’t really being thankful for anything. Which is absurd so your joke, so-called, had no premise. Indeed, it only had a premise in so far as you were able to convince yourself that simply saying “Happy Thanksgiving” is inadequate as a greeting. Why you use the phrase “limp wristed” is a question we’ll leave to your therapist. Or is the masculinity of any man who says, simply, “Happy Thanksgiving,” suspect in your mind? That’s kind of weird, Frank.
But to prove I’m not a kill joy, I’ll play along, too. I’ll take Hedley who posted a comment right after yours in which the best he could muster was, “Happy Thanksgiving to all.” What a woefully inadequate seasons greeting. Why, we have no idea what he’s thankful for or even if he’s thankful at all. (He also sounds a little swishy, if you catch my draft) I mean Bush may be planning a withdrawal from Iraq but surely Hedley could have found something to be thankful for, I mean, geez, I’m not sure where he stands at all with that fey “Happy Thanksgiving” stuff. Ha ha ha ha. I’m just kidding. Get it?
Because personally I don’t care what Washington felt the duty of nations was, it’s my God given right as an American citizne to be as grievously bitter as I want to be on Thanksgiving Day and everyday thereafter until January 2.
frameone: Does the phrase “25 words or less” mean anything to you? Damn.
And, yes, we could all be thankful that some families are going to have some nice surprise reunions at Christmas, but that doesn’t jibe with THE AGENDA, now does it?
An “intellectual bully” is someone who exhibits an aggressive manner in comments and responses, such that you feel ‘compelled’ to respond to questions that are not really about what you were saying. While frameone is an aficionado, others on these threads do it too.
Example, if I were to quote Sandburg:
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
An intellectual bully would say something like, “Why do you hate cats?”
Sort of a twisting of one’s own words into a “When did you stop beating your wife?” kind of question.
Incidentally, George Washington was number seven
See WikiPedia for James I of England / James VI of Scotland
But Frank, that isn’t what I did. Now that you admit the whole thing started as a joke, however anemic, for the lfie of me I can’t understand why you went after Goat with such vigor. Why didn’t you just say, “Lighten up, I was only joking”? Instead you quoted another US president and played name calling games, “I’m not a troll, you are.” If you were just joking why not play Goat the fool and point out his lack of humor? My whole involvement in this thread began when I noticed that your choosen definition of troll suited the very tactics you were using in this thread.
Since you were joking, as you say, you were being deliberately incorrect inorder to provoke readers. I have to assume you were being deliberately incorrect because I simply can’t believe you find “Happy Thanksgiving” to be an inadequate sentiment on its own terms. I mean is that what you really believe?
I guess my ultimate question is this: What is your point Frank? “Oliver isn’t being thankfull enough. Ha, ha.” That’s it? That was your point? That’s what you thought was so funny?
Let me ask you this. When you followed up your joke with a quote from George Washington were you quoting Washington ironically? At present I’d like to hope that you were. Because if you weren’t quoting Washington ironically are you suggesting that we have a duty to be thankful to God, or thankful period, on Thanksgiving? That’s kind of weird, too, Frank.
Yes, I do think we should thank God that we were born and live in America. And if you’re not grateful for that, that’s your fucking problem, junior. If you’re clutching your bitterness that tightly, no wonder you’re such a flaming asshole in your comments.
You have the right to believe whatever you want, but when you feel free to insult people that have done you no harm, then you’re an A – 1 bastard in any nation on earth.
The next time you feel “greviously bitter”, I suggest you visit one of two other places besides “The Cinema”: a soup kitchen or a VA hospital. If you don’t feel grateful after visiting one of those two places, then your heart is as adamant as is your pseudo – intellectual posturing.
Until then, I hope that all who surround you treat you like you treat them.
You’re doing it again, frame. Only this time, I’m wise to you.
The answers to your questions are:
1)Family reunions
2)The left wing, anti – Bush at all costs, agenda
3)No — see answer #2
4)Because you can’t make Bush look bad if the troops come home before the end of ‘06
5)No
6)No
7)No
By the way, you missed a post. Shall I repeat it for you?
What reunions are you talking about? What agenda are you talking about? Troop withdrawals from Iraq? Why would anyone have a problem with troops coming home from Iraq? Indeed, everyone but Bush and his supporters has been arguing for troop withdrawals until a few days ago when Bush switched his position 180 degrees. Are you now saying that Oliver was some how remiss for not specifically mentioning the troops when he wrote “Happy Thanksgiving”? Are you joking? Are you serious?
Listen up, Junior. I have to “get in touch” with my creative side, so I can’t play with you anymore.
Believe it or not, I do something creative and artistic, twice a week, and I enjoy it even more than pestering arrogant lefties. Unfortunately, it involves a lot of open windows, and sometimes two hands, so I can’t hang around here until tomorrow.
But think of it this way: You can come up with a whole crop of snide and vulgar remarks all through the night, thousands of insulting words that prove you’re exactly the same as that nasty old man in our neighborhood who never gave the ball back when it went into his yard.
No need to repeat yourself, just caught that post. You really do have no sense of humor. But your post does bring us back to your original assertion, in a way: “I do think we should thank God that we were born and live in America.” Quite frankly, we don’t. And thanking God has nothing to do with whether or not I am grateful or thankful for being an American or for living in America. I can be grateful for it without ever bringing God into it. I can be grateful for the random chance of my birth if I wish and be just as thankful for it. Or do you think that anyone who doesn’t publicly thank God for being an American is somehow less American than you? That’s neither very Christian nor very American, don’t you think? But isn’t that the sentiment that was beyond your small joke? More like a small-minded joke isn’t it?
Don’t tell me that you’re hiding behind the lefties’ famous “I was only kidding” shield, when someone points out what a rat bastard you are? Unbelievable, and I thought you were so creative.
Question #1: No
Question #2: I guess it isn’t very Christian, or very American, but how would you know?
Question #3: No
Question #4: No
Are we having fun yet?
I was only kidding? Yes, Frank, I really am grievously bitter. Geez. But funny you brought it up. Weren’t you just not a few posts ago saying that the post that touched this all off was a joke?
“I have to ‘get in touch’ with my creative side … it involves a lot of open windows, and sometimes two hands.”
What is this? Masturbation night in the Frank D household?
Frank,
I can’t see your point about being bullied; if someone tries to make out you’ve said something you didn’t, you just tell them it wasn’t so.
The quiz question I was asked also refers to the continental congress, of which Hancock was prez from October 1774. It was a stinker of a question. It ranks with “Which member of the Royal family played football for England? Answer: Joe (Royle, a pronunciation trick question).
You don’t have to tell me twice, frame — it’s obvious how bitter you are. It oozes out of every sentence you type on these threads, especially when it comes to me. That narcissism can make one pretty lonely, eh, kid?
Always ready with the intellectual riposte, eh, frame?
bryan, it has to do with a personal quirk of mine — I’ve never liked people accusing me of things I didn’t do, or putting words in my mouth. Put ‘em together, and I see red.
Okay Frank. Let’s put an end to this. Can you just finally come out an tell me what your point was and then actually stick to it.
You think Oliver should have been explicitly thankful to something or someone after he wrote “Happy Thanksgiving.” Do I understand this much of your point correctly?
Let me rephrase that first question:
1. Does Oliver saying “Happy Thanksgiving” and only “Happy Thanksgiving” tell you that he isn’t thankful to/for someone/something?
I suppose you want a rationale, now: It’s not called Thanksgiving Day for nothing.
Three questions for you:
1. But how do you know he isn’t thankful to/for something/someone?
2. I must have said Happy Thanksgiving a dozen times last week, at the grocery store, at my friend’s houses, as a greeting to a total stranger. Was I remiss or should I have cornered them all and explained to them what I was thankful for before going on my way?
3. Under what obligation is Oliver or I or anyone required to say more than Happy Thanksgiving when all one wants to express is a well wish or greeting?
Yes.
1. I don’t
2. No. Maybe you shouldn’t have said it at all, if it means about as much to you as Arbor Day or Groundhog Day. At least I wished that people would have a nice Thanksgiving or a good Thanksgiving.
3. None.
1. It tells me that he doesn’t really give a shit, and I suspect he doesn’t.
Any more questions, kid? I thought you were done.
Oh were just getting started now.
Your answers to my first question are revealing. You say you don’t know if Oliver is thankful or not for someone or something. So you indeed violated your own standards of honest debate as you have to have engaged in a lot of mind reading yourself to arrive at this answer: “It tells me that he doesn t really give a shit, and I suspect he doesn t.”
Same with your answer to my second question. You seem to have unilaterally decided that “Happy Thanksgiving” is an inadequate greeting or well wish and then decided that it is appropriate to apply your personal standards of sincerity to Oliver and now myself. Indeed, you have assumed that when I say “Happy Thanksgiving” I don’t really mean it. You assert that I should have instead said “Have a nice thanksgiving” or “Have a good thanksgiving” as evidence of my true sincerity. Given colloquialisms being what they are, I fail to see the difference.
Finally, if none of us are under any obligation to say anything more than Happy Thanksgiving when we mean for someone to have a Happy Thanksgiving what business is it of yours to come around and scold Oliver for not saying more?
While you’re at it, could you please enlighten us all as to the correct means of expressing the following sentiments:
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Happy New Year
Happy Birthday
Happy Anniversary
Happy Easter
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Have a nice day
HA HA HA HA HA!
That was some of the best freaking comedy ever! Frank is so confusing sometimes I really have no idea what he rants on and on about. But I do find it funny that he gets so angry over nothing! I mean jeez there are real things out there to upset a person. But showing proper reverance to a holiday on a political blog!
Merry Xmas! heh…I wonder how that will go over – get it – took the Christ right out of it! Silly Rabit…
I really have to take a lot of responsibility for the pointlessness of this thread, but hey, I love Frank. Poke him once and he’s good for hours of fun.
While you re at it, could you please enlighten us all as to the correct means of expressing the following sentiments:
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Happy New Year
Happy Birthday
Happy Anniversary
Happy Easter
Happy St. Patrick s Day
Have a nice day
This response is directly aimed at you. You are hereby exempt from having to utter these greetings to anyone again, for as long as you live. It seems to disturb you so, because you are unable to do it properly.
I defer to you on this one, frame, you can take all the responsibility for pointlessness this time.
It doesn’t violate anything, junior. You and about half a dozen other people on these threads not only pretend to know what I’m thinking, but you draw inferences from those telepathic readings, and expect me to defend them. I merely said that it seemed to me that he didn’t give a shit, and I didn’t ask him to defend a position I wasn’t sure was his.
Given colloquialisms being what they are, I fail to see the difference.
Once again, you seem to believe that what you believe is somehow factual, rather than an opinion. I would say, “I say poh – tay – toh”, and you say “‘Solanum tuberosum’ is a perennial plant of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family, grown for its starchy tuber. Potatoes form the world’s most important non-cereal crop, and grow world-wide. Growers cultivate thousands of different varieties of potato.”
I “assumed that when you say ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ you don t really mean it.” with good reason. You reserved to yourself the right to be bitter and ungrateful, and you claimed that you said “Happy Thansgiving” to complete strangers.
Finally, if I choose to believe that a person should participate in Thanksgiving beyond consuming copious amounts of turkey, and watching helmeted men in tight pants run up and down a field with an oblong spheroid in their hands, then why should it be any business of yours whether or not I call Oliver “Wimpy”, because he did not, of all the bloggers I read who even alluded to Thanksgiving, mention one thing to be grateful for?
Now are we done, kid?
Not by a long shot.
“I merely said that it seemed to me that he didn t give a shit, and I didn t ask him to defend a position I wasn t sure was his.”
It seemed to you that he didn’t give a shit. And you arrived at this conclusion based on what? The fact that he said “Happy Thanksgiving.” Kind of slim evidence isn’t it? Then you called him wimpy. Do you feel the same way about Heldey? All he said was “Happy Thanksgiving to all.” Is Hedley a wimp, too?
“Once again, you seem to believe that what you believe is somehow factual, rather than an opinion.”
But Frank, that’s not what I did. I merely pointed out that you were applying your own opinion of what constitutes a sincere holiday wish to others — and in a rather selective manner I might add since you failed to include Hedley in your little scolding. According to you, anyone who simply says “Happy Thanksgiving” is some how being insincere, especially compared to you and other bloggers you read.
“… then why should it be any business of yours whether or not I call Oliver ‘Wimpy’ ”
But why on earth should it be any of your business in the first place how anyone anywhere choose to celebrate a certain holiday?
“It seems to disturb you so, because you are unable to do it properly.”
But Frank, pray tell, how can I do it properly? I come to seeking guidance.
All these years I have been wondering in the darkness greeting people with mere “Merry Christmases” and “Happy Birthdays.” I shudder to think that I have offended so many people with my callous indifference to their cheer. I mean think of all those birthday cards and christmas cards I have sent that just said “Happy Birthday” or “Merry Christmas.” My goodness, do you think Hallmark knows about the deficiencies of these horribly insincere phrases? Frank, quick, write a letter, call your Congressperson, Hallmark must be stopped before thousands of innocent people express their well wishes to others in such an insincere and unthinking fashion.
And yes, Frank, we are done. I think your pettiness and sheer lunacy are now on sufficient display that no one, but no one, on either side of the polticial spectrum could fail to see it.
Merry Xmas! heh& I wonder how that will go over – get it – took the Christ right out of it! Silly Rabit&
Merry Xmas, eh? Never saw that one before… Today, moron!
Speaking of rabbits, Who pulled you out of your hole?
And “rabbit” has two ‘b’s’ — like bubblebrain.
And yes, Frank, we are done
Halle – fucking – lujah!
Frank! Here is to a better New Year for you as well; maybe you will see that the GW’s have sold your particular brand of Conservatism to the lowest bidder.
Oops on the typo – ever hear of one of those?