L.B.: The Imaginary Liberal

Left Behind, pp. 413-415

One of the reasons I consider the Left Behind series to be the World's Worst Books is that they achieve the precise opposite of what their authors intend.

The authors sought to provide an illustration that would persuade readers of the truth of the coming events supposedly prophesied in their premillennial dispensationalist interpretation of the Bible. But their best efforts to portray such events occurring in a "real world" fictional setting have instead served only to illustrate the implausibility and impossibility of those events actually happening in a world that is anything like the one we live in. The only way they are able to conceive of and present a scenario in which such events might occur is to have everyone in their story behave irrationally, inhumanly and inexplicably. The books thus disprove what the authors set out to prove. They illustrate powerfully that the event of PMD prophecies are impossible in the real world. Every page of these books provides evidence that such events could never occur without sweeping fundamental changes in nature and human nature (and in our understanding, such as it is, of the nature of God). These events are not merely supernatural, they are unnatural or even anti-natural. They are impossible.

In the previous post, we explored the possibility that the authors might, on some level, realize this. More than that, really. The authors must, on some level, realize this. And that has to be terrifying. Appreciate how high the stakes are for them here. They have placed themselves into the unenviable position of having everything they believe -- about God, the Bible, the meaning of life and their place in the universe -- rest upon six impossible things happening before breakfast. Thus when forced to choose between believing in those impossible things and believing in the real world as it presents itself to us all, well, to paraphrase the people of Krikkit, the real world'll have to go.

Rejecting the real world in favor of the impossible reality of PMD prophecy can't be easy, even for Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The real world, after all, is where they pick up their mail and do their shopping. They must be at least dimly aware of its stubborn refusal to cease to exist despite its incompatibility with their idiosyncratic interpretation of scripture.

Trying to get inside the authors' heads to understand how they cope with this stubborn persistence of reality has proved a bit grammatically taxing, forcing me to rely on unwieldy constructs like "chosen to pretend to believe" in an attempt to convey the willful self-deception that it seems they must be employing. The subject of that self-deception in the previous post was the nature and function of the United Nations. Today we'll examine how that same willfully self-deceptive ignorance shapes their understanding of something much closer to home -- their understanding of people like me and, quite possibly, of people like you as well. The authors have chosen to pretend to believe some very unpleasant and demonstrably untrue things about people like us.

We left off as Buck and his Chicago-office colleagues were watching a CNN report on Nicolae Carpathia's faux-reluctant acceptance of the role of global dictator:

"There is no guarantee, of course, that even member nations will unanimously go along with the move to destroy 90 percent of their military strength and turn over the remaining 10 percent to the U.N. But several ambassadors expressed their confidence 'in equipping and arming an international peacekeeping body with a thoroughgoing pacifist and committed disarmament activist as its head.'"

A "thoroughgoing pacifist" could never accept the leadership of an armed peacekeeping body. That's what "pacifist" means. We could, I suppose, imagine some kind of pacifist army of peacekeepers, something like Christian Peacemaker Teams writ large. They could be sent into areas of conflict to march, unarmed, between the guns of opposing forces, where they would likely get mowed down like Jeremy Irons at the end of The Mission, thus achieving a moral victory that would compel the aggressors to rethink their use of violence. Or something. But that's clearly not what Carpathia has in mind, since his scheme starts with him acquiring an effective global monopoly on military force.

The idea here is so confused that it's confusing. If everyone is already disarmed, what's the point of a peacekeeping force? And where, exactly, is there room on First Avenue to park all of those tanks and fighter jets? (As for the latter question, readers should recognize that one of the authors' unstated misapprehensions about the United Nations is that it has a standing army of its own -- an army equipped, trained and employed by the U.N. itself. I'm not sure whether they conceive of this as an all-volunteer force composed of expatriates from throughout the world or whether they imagine it to be staffed by conscripts drafted from among the citizens of U.N.-istan, but I've already given this idea more thought than they ever have, so let's try not to explore this particular absurdity further for now.)

The authors -- and thus the CNN reporter, Buck and all the others watching -- also don't seem to realize what this means. They seem to think that Carpathia's tithe of the world's weaponry, and the destruction of the rest, would be merely some kind of tax or tribute and not, in fact, the effective surrender and dissolution of every nation that agreed to it. The monopoly on the use of military force is part of the definition of a state. To surrender that to some other entity is to surrender statehood itself. Agreeing to Carpathia's scheme would involve not just a reduction, but the abandonment of sovereignty. The authors here portray every nation on earth as willing and eager to do this, with only the slightest reservation. That's not just far-fetched, it's impossible. It describes a world that is completely unrecognizable.

Not even Carpathia himself is portrayed here as recognizing that he has just been given the keys and pink slips to every nation on the planet:

The CNN anchor continued, "Among other developments today, there are rumors of the organization of groups ..."

This isn't intended as a parody of CNN's shabby journalism. The CNN report here is simply an expository device and it's thus supposed to be a realistic presentation of the sort of thing one might actually hear a news anchor say. In a novel with a journalist-protagonist readers deserve something better than a headline or lead-in such as "Rumors of the organization of groups." Anyway ...

The CNN anchor continued, "Among other developments today, there are rumors of the organization of groups espousing one world government. Carpathia was asked if he aspired to a position of leadership in such an organization."

Just to clarify, "such an organization" there does not refer to its grammatical antecedent -- "groups espousing one world government" -- but to the OWG itself. So Carpathia, who has just been named head of the United Nations, which has just been reconfigured as one world government, is being asked here if he "aspired" to lead one world government. So Nicolae, now that you're global sovereign, world caesar and commander-in-chief of planet earth, do you also "aspire" to become international prime minister?

Carpathia looked directly into the network pool camera and with moist eyes and thick voice said, "I am overwhelmed to have been asked to serve as secretary-general of the United Nations. I aspire to nothing else. While the idea of one world government resonates deep within me, I can say only that there are many more qualified candidates to lead such a venture. It would be my privilege to serve in any way I am asked, and while I do not see myself in the leadership role, I will commit the resources of the United Nations to such an effort, if asked."

Of course he aspires to nothing else. There's nothing else left to aspire to. The authors intend Carpathia's moist and thick response to come across as a humble alternative to a "Today, Berlin ... tomorrow, the world!" statement, but what it really amounts to is something more like "Today, the world! and tomorrow ... well, 'the world' about covers it already, I guess. So tomorrow just more of the same."

For no apparent reason other than the End Times Checklist, Carpathia's conditions for his reluctant acceptance of global dictatorship also included a peace treaty with Israel:

"Also coming out of today's meetings was the announcement of a seven-year pact between U.N. members and Israel, guaranteeing its borders and promising peace. In exchange, Israel will allow the U.N. to selectively franchise the use of the fertilizer formula, developed by Nobel prizewinner Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig, which makes desert sands tillable and has made Israel a top exporter."

When peace in the Middle East is presented as an afterthought, then you know the U.N. has had a very busy morning. This achievement would have seemed more impressive, though, if we hadn't already been informed that Israel had achieved peace with all of its neighbors and secure, guaranteed borders before the events of this book even took place. Here again is LB's description of Israel's status, from a flashback set a year before The Event, on Page 8:

The prosperity brought about by the miracle formula changed the course of history for Israel. Flush with cash and resources, Israel made peace with her neighbors. Free trade and liberal passage allowed all who loved the nation to have access to it.

Buck's account of the harmless nuclear assault on Israel also lists the West Bank cities of Jericho and Bethlehem as part of that nation. So an expanded Israel is already at peace with its neighbors. The checkpoints and occupations are a thing of the past, and now the entire world will be voluntarily and completely disarming. So it's not really clear why Israel needs a new peace treaty or, for that matter, how Israel could enter into a treaty with "U.N. members" when it is, itself, a member nation of the U.N. As such, of course, Israel is also among the nations that has just agreed to hand over its arms to Nicolae, making this treaty something akin to a treaty between Caesar and Rome. But whether it makes any sense or not, it's in the checklist, so it has to happen.

(We covered the odd notion of prosperity-through-agriculture way back -- see "Weird Science" -- but let me just note here that making sand "tillable" isn't really that impressive. A bit of a nitpick, I suppose, but a helpful reminder to young writers that the thesaurus is not always your friend.)

So now we've got one world army, without objection. And One World Government, without objection

Have I also mentioned that Carpathia's conditions include one world religion?

A reporter asked Carpathia if that included plans for one world religion. ... His response: "I can think of little, more encouraging than the religions of the world finally cooperating. Some of the worst examples of discord and infighting have been between groups whose overall mission is love among people. Every devotee of pure religion should welcome this potential. The day of hatred is past. Lovers of humankind are uniting."

Again, the authors imagine and portray this as occurring with no objection -- Sunni and Shia, Hindu and Buddhist, Sunni and Buddhist, Shia and Hindu, all embracing in one moist and thick global group hug. The authors don't portray this as something difficult that must, somehow, be achieved in order for their prophecy to be fulfilled. They portray this as something their prophecy says must occur, and thus as something that will happen unremarkably and almost instantly. The problem here is not merely that of an unconvincing portrayal of the transition from Point A to Point B, but of the off-handed juxtaposition of Point A and anti-matter Point A.

Oh, and language.

There will also be one world language.

This idea is also enthusiastically embraced without the slightest opposition or concern for the vast and impossible logistics involved. Which language will survive and which 6,799 or so will be criminalized and euthanized? Don't worry about such trivial details. Who could possibly concern themselves with such questions?

So OK then, here are Buck Williams and his colleagues, sitting in the offices of the dear disintegrated Lucinda Williams. They have just learned that their country has effectively been disbanded/subsumed into the OWG, that their religion or lack thereof will need to be brought into line with an as-yet-undescribed new global belief system, and that their magazine may soon need to be produced exclusively in French or Urdu or, for all they know, Romanian.

How do you suppose they receive this news?

They're thrilled. Ecstatic. This is exactly what they've been waiting for all of their lives.

Smooth, Buck thought, his mind reeling. As commentators and [former?] world leaders endorsed one world currency, one language, and even the largesse of Carpathia expressing his support for the rebuilding of the temple in Israel, the staff of Global Weekly's Chicago bureau seemed in a mood to party. "This is the first time in years I've felt optimistic about society," one reporter said.

Another added, "This has to be the first time I've smiled since the disappearances. We're supposed to be objective and cynical, but how can you not like this? It'll take years to effect all this stuff, but someday, somewhere down the line, we're going to see world peace. No more weapons, no more wars, no more border disputes or bigotry based on language or religion. Whew! Who'd have believed it would come to this?"

Please note here what does not happen in this newsroom full of reporters. No one jumps up, scurrying back to their desks to get as much of this into print as possible before their next edition goes to press. They should be scrambling to the phones, shouting like Cary Grant in His Girl Friday, "Tear out the whole front page! ... The whole front page, never mind the Chinese earthquake! ... What? Leave the rooster story alone. That's human interest." But of course they're not because this is Global Weekly: "We won't tell anyone."

The reaction here to Carpathia's announcement is mystifying. Faced with the surrender of country, conscience and culture everyone is "in a mood to party." The Panzers are rolling into Warsaw and the people are responding like it's V-E Day. And it's not just here in the GW offices that this madness occurs. This is how the entire country and the entire world receives this news.

It's flabbergastingly unreal. Unimaginable. Impossible. (I'm using that word a lot today.) But it makes perfect sense if you understand LaHaye & Jenkins' concept of the Imaginary Liberal.

Forget what you know about actual liberals (including, of course, what you know about yourself if you should happen to be a liberal). There are no actual liberals in this book, only Imaginary Liberals. In the authors' view, this is also true of the world.

It's possible that you're reading this with some relief because you do not consider yourself a liberal. If so, I should clarify. Are you a Real True Christian of the sort that you can be confident that you would be Rapture-qualified and not among those left behind? If not, then you're a liberal. And by that I mean that you are, to the authors, an Imaginary Liberal. These are the only two categories that exist.

And if apart from the RTCs the world is populated by Imaginary Liberals, then this passage is a model of objective realism. This is exactly how a world of Imaginary Liberals would respond to an announcement like this.

Imaginary Liberals are awful people. They hate America and they hate God.

Even the ones who claim to believe in some other non-RTC religion hate the RTC God specifically, they've just pretended to latch onto that other religion, which they know isn't real, as a convenient vehicle for expressing that hatred. Thus the abolition of all religion, seeing it subsumed it into one ill-defined, featureless global porridge is exactly what they're hoping for. (Carpathia spoke of "cooperation" among religions, but the authors know that, for Imaginary Liberals, that's really just a code word for the annihilation of all individuality and its absorption into a collectivist whole.)

Even the ones who claim to love some other country really just hate America, specifically, and they've just pretended to latch onto that other nationalism, which they know isn't real, as a convenient vehicle for expressing that hatred too. Thus the abolition of all nations -- including the delicious elimination of America itself -- is also exactly what they're hoping for.

Awful, awful people those Imaginary Liberals.

And the authors think you're one of them. Those ridiculous reporters swooning and gushing over Carpathia's moist and thick tyranny are the authors' stand-ins for you and me. This is how they imagine we would respond if we heard just such an announcement. This is what they imagine we want to see happen. The authors don't realize that the Imaginary Liberal is imaginary. They think they're real and they're everywhere.

This is obviously a bit more troubling than some of the authors' other delusional beliefs. Tim LaHaye's delirious fantasies about the form and function of the United Nations may have some influence over his politics and the political beliefs of his 50 million or so readers/followers, but those beliefs are directly shaped by this idea of the Imaginary Liberal.

Believing in the Imaginary Liberal, like believing in anything else that is demonstrably unreal, requires a great deal of effort. That effort, again, can never be wholly unconscious. Some part of the self must always be vigilantly attempting to explain why the abundant evidence against that belief doesn't matter while also attempting to explain why the utter lack of evidence for that belief doesn't matter. Thus, again, the lie must constantly be reinforced or reconstructed. And thus, again, this active effort to persuade oneself inevitably persists as a nagging reminder that oneself still needs persuading.

Which brings us back to the tortured grammar of trying to convey this multi-layered self-deception: The Imaginary Liberal is something in which the authors have "chosen to pretend to believe." That's not quite the same thing as actually believing, mind you, but it's close enough for them to not-quite-comfortably convince themselves that this passage provides an accurate portrayal of Nicolae's rise to power and the enthusiastic reception they have chosen to pretend to believe it would receive.

Comments

[Keith]

Oddly this reminded me of one of my favorite books, Valis by Philip Dick. The key difference between Dick and Lahaye/Jenkins is that Dick is completely aware of the impossible paradox of his situation.

Valis is a perfect analogy, peep.

Philip K. Dick basically invented the opposite of Occam's razor: All things being equal, the least plausible and most astonishing answer is probably the one that, wile not true, I'm going to believe in anyway because it satisfies my need for Cosmic Order of a Byzantine complexity.

[aunursa]

Anyone who thinks that the authors can't REALLY believe this nonsense has never run into a 9/11 troofer.

[Tokyo (was Edo)]

Thar is no way to maek shur that teh UN membarz will no... yoon... all go along wif my moovs to OM NOM NOM nienty purrcent ov teh weppins and giev me teh rest. But a bunch of abm... anb... mah privaet army, let me show u it....

Being teh sekrettary-jenrul of teh UN, is not so bad aktually. WANT. Being in ur UN, rulin ur urthz erz... rez... moevs me deep, an I can say onlee that I iz mebbe not teh riet dood for teh job. I no want, but if u wants Nikky of teh Hillz fur UN sekrettyar-jenrul, u can has.

[Lauren]

The homeschool curricula webpage was so disturbing I could only read a few entries be fore running in terror.

rm, I think the point of the "pretending to believe" phraseology is that if you are "stop[ing] up your ears" and not listening to real existing poeple, you have to have some idea in some part of your mind that you are doing it. If a (literally) deaf person lives in a world populated entirely by the deaf, they might not notice that they cannot hear, but a deaf person living in a world filled with hearing people is going to notice that everybody else reacts to noise. In order for them to believe that hearing does not exist, they will have to come up with a belief system that explains why everybody seems to hear, why everybody claims to hear, and why everybody acts like they can hear. And in doing so they can't help but tacitely acknowledge the existence of noise.

Wow, that metaphor needs a little work.

Setting the bar pretty low, but LB would work better if it were not set so close to the action. If Buck were a carpenter, and Steele a, well, he can still be a commercial pilot, then they wouldn't be expected to understand the hows and the whys of the checklist, and the authors could just focus on how they react to event. Of course, the authors aren't terribly interested in how they react, either...

[Queequeg]

L&J's Imaginary Liberal is the Barack Obama who turns his back on the flag during the pledge of allegiance and the John Kerry who volunteered to serve in Vietnam because he hates his country.

They truly believe that liberals invite one another to flag-burning parties, and wish Pol Pot were president. There's nothing we can do to change their delusions. But it surely helps when people such as Fred point out the bizarre beliefs of these politically powerful people.

[Caravelle]

Masterful post, Fred ! I think it's my favorite so far. And that Krikkit reference might just be the most scary thing I've ever read about the PMD. (any minute now, they'll go on a RAMPAGE!!!)

Do we ever find out what the World Language is going to be ? Obviously not a major language that's official in some nation-state, as every option will have 1) the other nation-states screaming, and especially 2) the unrecognized linguistic minorities of those nation-states also screaming, and a lot of those linguistic minorities have terrorist organizations who will suddenly find themselves facing and unarmed oppressive state.
Oh yes, there will be blood...

[vanya]

I don't think the authors are bothered in the slightest by the cognitive dissonance between their theories and objective reality. As long the money keeps rolling in and the adulation from millions of born-agains continues, the authors probably on some level believe God is rewarding them for telling the "real" truth.

And what is the point of this book, really? I don't think in the end the authors really care about revealing "truth", not in the sense that people whose philosphical orientation stems from the enlightenment might understand truth. This book is a hate screed, plain and simple. The only real purpose of the story is to vilify the non-RTC world and paint it in as bad a light as possible. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was obviously a complete fabrication as well, but people who already hate Jews don't seem to notice the glaring flaws. I don't see Left Behind as any different really from a book like Protocols. Everytime I read one of these entries I think of the "Two Minutes' Hate" ritual in 1984. Probably most of its fans, and very possibly even the authors, don't really, in their guts, believe any thing like a rapture is coming any time soon - they read and enjoy this book for the same reason people like watching action movies or pro wrestling - they just want the visceral thrill of seeing their enemies beat down. Criticizing LB for lack of verisimilitude is probably as effective as pointing out that pro wrestling is staged.

Which is not to say I don't love Fred's criticisms - I do. But I have a sad feeling that they would have no effect whatsoever on LB's fans or author.

[Tokyo (was Edo)]

Which is true, but I don't think they're being written for the fans or authors...

[Caravelle]

The authors have no clue about liberals - y'all are supposedly swooning and Nicky has yet to raise taxes. I call bullshit.

LOL ! So true :D
LB bashing from a libertarian perspective ! Truly Scott is a necessary member of this foru- uh, comment section. Less snappy, that.

[Spherical Time]

This is a brilliant post, and I must have a concussion or something because earlier when I said that I can proudly say I'm not "an American one" I meant that I'm not "an imaginary one."

Uhg. I'm sorry for that.

[Caravelle]

Geds : Why the hell would Nicky Himalaya be creating one world religion, then rebuilding the temple? It makes no sense. I mean, outside of the checklist...

Remember, he's the Antichrist. He's actually the only character who has a bona-fide in-story reason to know the checklist and to want to follow it. Other than God and Jesus of course.

[Darkrose]

Those ridiculous reporters swooning and gushing over Carpathia's moist and thick tyranny

Oh, I'm not touching that one with a 10-foot pole. Or even an 11-foot Czech.

[Darkrose]

Remember, he's the Antichrist. He's actually the only character who has a bona-fide in-story reason to know the checklist and to want to follow it.

Actually he has an in-story reason to know the checklist, and no reason whatsoever to want to follow it. If I were the Antichrist (which I'm not, despite being a pro-choice feminist pagan lesbian) I'd run "Revelation" through a shredder, kick back, and say, "Eh. Whatever. The RTC's are out of the way, so my work here's pretty much done, since I don't actually want Christ to show up.

[Geds]

Oh, I'm not touching that one with a 10-foot pole.

Don't worry. It'll touch you.

[Tonio]

Vanya, if you haven't already read this article from 2002...

Fundamentally Unsound

The Left Behind books actually play on that sense of being unfairly ignored, reveling in the moment when smug agnostics, insufficiently zealous Christians and, most of all, Jews realize how terribly wrong they were...

Cannily, the authors make their protagonists disbelievers who are disdainful of fundamentalism. That means that doubters can relate to them and are thus drawn into their dawning religious consciousness, while believers get the satisfaction of seeing the heroes come around to their point of view. By having even minor characters recount their conversions, Jenkins and LaHaye make sure that each volume has moments when readers can enjoy a bit of high-minded revenge against mocking urbanites...

Seeing the self-defeating delusions of erstwhile elites exposed may be the greatest pleasure the Left Behind books offer their readers.

The Salon writer suggested that PMD might explain some of the more perplexing of the Bush Administration policies. Bush was recently surprised by the prediction of $4-a-gallon gasoline. For me, this argues against the idea of Bush wanting to invade Iraq for the oil, and suggests the more terrifying possibility that he was motivated by PMD beliefs.

[John]

Oddly enough, the imaginary liberal of LB sounds just as plausible as the imaginary libertarian described a couple o' posts ago. Which is to say both are caricatures put forth to discredit political views.

[Jon]

Actually he has an in-story reason to know the checklist, and no reason whatsoever to want to follow it.

That's always been pretty much my thinking about it. I mean, honestly, why bother following the script when you know it's not going to work out well for you? Being contrarian by nature - one would assume - it seems like the Antichrist would be doing everything possible to avoid checking off things on the checklist. One World Government? Nope, not happening. Treaty with Israel? Screw that. Forcing people to get my Mark in order to purchase goods and services? Nuh-uh.
If I were the Antichrist - which, like Darkrose, I'm not, despite what some crazy old fundy lady insisted when I was a baby (seriously) - I'd just spend my time enjoying what the world, and my power over it, has to offer.

[Becky]

The reason the Antichrist is rebuilding the temple (spoilers) is so that he can later defile and destroy it as revenge on the Jews for being God's chosen people.

Now why nobody in the books thinks it's strange that he's both creating a one world religion and rebuilding the Jewish temple... well, bad writing.

[Geds]

Which is to say both are caricatures put forth to discredit political views.

Yeah, but Fred was trying to start a flame war.

Also, there are Internet Libertarians who act like the caricature. I'm not sure that there are any Imaginary Liberals out there, internet or otherwise.

[Spherical Time]

I have to agree with Darkrose on Nicky's motivation. As he's portrayed, Nicky should have absolutely no desire to follow the checklist at all. He should retire to Columbia to live with his gay dads and stay out of world politics all together.

This is going to be posted on my blog in a month, but I guess I can bump up a copy onto Left Behind.

See "The Temptation of the Antichrist"

[Froborr]

This thread fits in perfectly with my friends' and mine habit of reading LOLcats out-loud in Dracula voices. "children of the nite i iz in yor base suckin yor bl00d" remains the all-time winner of that particular game.

[aunursa]

I mean, honestly, why bother following the script when you know it's not going to work out well for you? Being contrarian by nature - one would assume - it seems like the Antichrist would be doing everything possible to avoid checking off things on the checklist. One World Government?

I once put forth that argument to an Evangelical. Response: Satan knows what is predicted but due to pride he believes that he can change the final outcome.

[Lucia]

'ach qaSpa' jajvam Dat tlhIngan Hol jatlhlu'!
"But Klingon is already the universal language!"

[Tonio]

Satan knows what is predicted but due to pride he believes that he can change the final outcome.

That was the case in the Omen books. Interesting that both the Omen and the Exorcist had the Christian side being represented by Catholics.

[Geds]

Satan knows what is predicted but due to pride he believes that he can change the final outcome.

Good will triumph in the end because evil is stupid?

[Caravelle]

Actually he has an in-story reason to know the checklist, and no reason whatsoever to want to follow it. If I were the Antichrist (which I'm not, despite being a pro-choice feminist pagan lesbian) I'd run "Revelation" through a shredder, kick back, and say, "Eh. Whatever. The RTC's are out of the way, so my work here's pretty much done, since I don't actually want Christ to show up.

That would depend on what you consider the role of the Antichrist to be, of course. Is he a free-willed opponent to God ? (manicheism). Is he bound by prophecy ? Is he actually working with God to fulfill some ineffable plan ? Is he a free-willed opponent to God who happens to like the checklist ? (because face it, he's evil)

And if you wish to point out that some of those alternatives make the whole bloody thing completely pointless, let me answer you in one word : Ineffable.

[PerfectBlue]

Few things about those folks send me into frothing rants like this propensity...the willful rejection of evidence contrary to their belief structure. I'm not talking about personal willful deception. Humanity as a whole engages in it daily. I'm talking about embracing memes that are utterly divorced from reality. It's beyond truthiness, really. I'm talking about their propensity to hold forth as absolute truths things they personally disprove in their daily lives.

During the unimaginably ridiculous dustup over Michelle Obama's remarks about what her husband would "demand" of his supporters, I read a conservative forum where the commenters, who had otherwise cheered on every governmental abuse and overreach under this administration, were wringing their hands in terror over Michelle Obama's use of a rhetorical device. Over and over, "Demand? That scares me." No one ever elucidated what they thought she, or her husband, was going to DO to them, should they fail to become informed and motivated, what consequences they were so frightened of. But they were terrified. Because Democrats are jack-booted fascists who want to take away your rights, don't you know.

It's like the discussion about torture/abortion a long time ago here. They demonstrably don't believe a word that's coming out of their own mouths. It's not really completely about hypocrisy, although that is part of it, all for me and none for thee. It's about chosing to pretend to believe, committing themselves to concepts and ideas that are simply not rational, and the passionate exclusion of all other evidence to the contrary, including their own behavior.

[Dan]

I think this is perhaps the most lucid, insightful, incisive installment yet. Like a Distinguished English Prof ripping apart first-year freshman students. As Fun to watch as it is to play along. A couple comments, though.

I have spent plenty of time among pmds, and my experience is that their filters are so strong, they truly believe their Belief is the only True Belief. It's like fanatical Muslims who truly believe all Christians are heathens based on a couple episodes of Baywatch that, ahem, they heard about somewhere. Their map is so far from reality that they can't even recognize the dissonance. Which means, to answer an earlier question, you pretty much can't have a meaningful discussion with them. The moment they sense you disagree, they place you in the "Liberal" column and stop listening to you. Again, it's like having the Mormons at the door, going through their checklist, regardless of anything you might actually think on the subject at hand. So I think it is with L&J. And the success of their novels only undergirds their belief that they are Right and everybody else is Wrong.

Also, one other answer to the "why Revelation has to be prophetic" thread - it ties into all the other prophetic passages that DID come true. Since Isaiah made such clear prophesies about Jesus, since Micah got the Bethlehem part right, then Prophecy is True. And Daniel is in there with the prophets, and his stuff fits perfectly with John's, so we know it's all about future events. Every time I've tried to convince one of these people that Revelation is most likely about Rome, they accuse me of denying All Prophecy In the Bible (again, there's that liberal category again). "If Jesus fulfilled OT Prophecy, that proves that Revelation (and Mark 13) are prophecy that will be Literally Fulfilled., too."

[PerfectBlue]

whoops...did I forget to close a tag?

[Jesurgislac]

Delendo italica!

[PerfectBlue]

Tag shame. I has it.

[Geds]

And Daniel is in there with the prophets, and his stuff fits perfectly with John's, so we know it's all about future events.

Ever tried to point out that Daniel had two different authors (as did, I think, Jeremiah)?

[Cyllan]

Apparently several of us took on the motivations of the Antichrist this week.

[MikhailBorg]

Good will triumph in the end because evil is stupid?

Well, let's face it. Satan has direct, personal experience of God. He's spoken to him, lost bets with him, and in some tales was once one of his angels. So what does he do? He decides to challenge I Am That I Am, the Creator of Time, Space, Life, and Sentience. I mean, hubris much?

Since Klingons have recently been brought up, I'm reminded of the scene in the first Trek movie where they challenge an entity wider than 82 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun... with three aircraft-carrier sized starships. ("Sir! This seems vaguely suicidal!" "You coward! We are Klingons!")

[noyatin]

“Thus, again, the lie must constantly be reinforced or reconstructed.”

A perfect example of this appears today on Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink.org website.

A banner headline screams,” Planned Parenthood Web Site Promotes Porn, Misleads Teens”

Pretty awful, right? Here’s the offending passage: the website tells teens that “many people enjoy using pornography.”

Talk about reinforcing a lie. The Imaginary Liberals at PP are misleading our youth by claiming that a multi-billion dollar industry produces a product that people enjoy.

[Caravelle]

Must've been a very fragile entity...
Ooooh wait ! I've got it ! They used their ships to get inside the entity and disrupt it like bacteria would do with us !
That seems more like a Federation tactic though. Or Vulcan/Romulan.

[Spherical Time]

Caravelle: Ineffable.

I disagree that that is an answer.

Cyllan: Apparently several of us took on the motivations of the Antichrist this week.

I wrote that back in January for my blog, but it just fits into the current conversation so well that I decided to post it.

MikhailBorg: Well, let's face it. Satan has direct, personal experience of God. He's spoken to him, lost bets with him, and in some tales was once one of his angels. So what does he do? He decides to challenge I Am That I Am, the Creator of Time, Space, Life, and Sentience. I mean, hubris much?

The book "To Reign in Hell" by Steven Brust is brilliant work of fiction that dissects the motivations of God and Satan before the creation of the world. I highly recommend it.

[Les]

I'm so happy to see that Esperanto is on the PMD checklist! w00t! My studies of it were not in vain!

However, the idea is that it's a universal SECOND language and encourages language diversity by giving people an easy common tongue instead of setting up a difficult native language as dominant. English, for example, is very hard to learn and it's dominance privileges it's native speakers. Whereas Esperanto is very easy to learn and is nobody's native language, so everybody speaking it is more-or-les linguistically equal.

Mi gxojas cxar E-on estas cxe la listo PMD-a! uxoux! . . . . it's been too long. shoot.

[Scrutinizer]

Nikolie Karpa--Karapat---Pacerra---um Nik: U haz my bukkit?

[soupy sales]

Here's what I don't get, though. The RTC dominionist/reconstructionist movement believes that it's the duty of RTC's to "reconstruct" this world (starting with the US) in line with biblical principles. This includes putting RTCs in charge of all branches of government (men only, of course), and rewriting all laws to based on (their interpretations of) biblical law. Then they want the United States of Real True Christians to do the same thing to the rest of the world, until the whole world is exactly how they believe the Bible says it should be. 'Cause, you know, this is what God wants for America.

Isn't that a one-world RTC government? Isn't that exactly what their prophecy is afraid of? And if American RTCs are in charge, they will want English as the world's language, if their treatment of non-English speakers in the US is any guide. Doesn't the pursuit of a world ruled by RTCs coupled with the heresy that they believe make RTCs the very definition of the anti-Christ?

Do we ever find out what the World Language is going to be ?

Well, it can't be English. Because insisting that all transactions be in English (God's Own Language! The Bible Wuz WRITTEN In IT!) is on the To-Do List of the RTC.

[car]

O hai i upgraded ur UN.

[Jon]

I once put forth that argument to an Evangelical. Response: Satan knows what is predicted but due to pride he believes that he can change the final outcome.

I've always assumed as much, but it's a notion that rings hollow with me. I think a better explanation is simply that Satan lacks free will. Like Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, he doesn't stop being a puppet just because he happens to be able to see the strings.

[Lauren]

Whereas Esperanto is very easy to learn and is nobody's native language, so everybody speaking it is more-or-les linguistically equal.

Really? Because I had heard that Esperanto was actually rather difficult due to having inherited complicated consonant clusters and complex tenses from Belorussian.

Try Toki Pona.

[Jeff]

IM IN YR UN MAKIN PAX WIT ISREAL! (Spelling intentional)

[Thlayli]

They truly believe that liberals ... wish Pol Pot were president.

Especially now, when he's dead.

[Muse of Ire]

LaHaye and Jenkins: Christian! Liberals! UN! Pacifist! Sensible shoes!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

[Darkrose]

Oh, I'm not touching that one with a 10-foot pole.

Don't worry. It'll touch you.

Bad Touched By the Antichrist?

[Randy Owens]

Careful, Spherical, there's someone in these comments with a grudge against To Reign In Hell, I forget who, but found out after I similarly recommended the book a month or two ago.

Now that I think about it, I believe I had brought it up in response to a discussion of Gaiman's American Gods or his and Pratchett's Good Omens, so it might be worth pointing out that American Gods is now available to read online for free. Knock yourselves out!

[Jeff Weskamp]

"The RTC dominionist/reconstructionist movement believes that it's the duty of RTC's to "reconstruct" this world (starting with the US) in line with biblical principles." -- soupy sales

The most disgusting part of the whole dominionist/reconstructionist iideology is the idea of "regency." Basically, these folks say that they want to "prepare" the world for Jesus to rule it. But,.... until Jesus returns, they will just have to operate as this world's "regents."

I have a feeling that if they were ruling the world and Jesus showed up, these guys would not want to relinquish the throne....