This episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors begins with a caller’s accusation that one of us has become too big for his literary britches. We then hear from one of our favorite fans who shares a bit about his family’s struggle and that, somehow or another, our podcast actually helps him cope. We revisit the issue of overprotective fathers, after which we are forced to reckon with the notion that one of us may be smarter than the other (but now that we’ve had some time to consider it, we agree that we are completely equal in every way (wink)). Jason is unwillingly coerced into defending his religion a little bit, and Christian weighs in on a question about whether people should be proud of stuff they didn’t actually work to accomplish (like being American. Or gay). Things turn a little political after the break and we discuss how to be classy and presidential while just grabbing people’s pussies. Christian’s bieber is about everything getting worse, while Jason’s focuses on pizza and ice cream.
Also, has Jason mentioned that he wrote a book lately?
Podcast #71: Virtual Friends, Counsellors, and Confessors
Podcast #202: Embassies, Spotify, and Prayer
Podcast #283: Christmas Gifts and Psychedelics
Podcast #399: Uvalde, Survivor’s Guilt, and Explaining the Internet
Hey, Jason and Christian,
On Trump: I’m so disgusted by the vocal support for him, and hypocritical defenses of him (especially, but not only, among many of my fellow Christians, both Catholics and evangelical Protestants), that I’m seriously at the point of leaving the Republican Party over it. I don’t see how I can vote, in good conscience, in the future, for any politician who hasn’t had the spine and the integrity to *consistently* oppose Trump. There are a few Republican leaders who have done so, such as Ben Sasse, and if he and a few others decide to break off and start a new conservative party, then they have my support. At this point, I’m writing in a Catholic independent candidate for President named Joe Schriner who bases his positions around Catholic Social Teaching, which makes him very “conservative” in certain ways and very “liberal” in others. Here’s his website: http://www.voteforjoe.com
Back to the Christian defenses of Trump, to see friends of mine who were *so vocally outraged* about Bill Clinton’s indiscretions in the ’90s now explaining away Trump’s sickening behavior… I don’t even have words for it. Then again, I’ve been #NeverTrump basically since he announced his candidacy, beginning with his words about Mexican illegal immigrants who, in his mind, seemed to mostly be “rapists… and some of them, I’m sure, are good people.” When I heard those words, I knew that if the Republican Party nominated him, the Party would fully deserve to lose.
One area where I do disagree with both of you is on a politician’s public policy ideas being so important that, by comparison, his or her private moral decisions (marital fidelity or the lack thereof) are largely negligible. Bill Clinton’s infidelities were concerning to me, as a statement on his character, and the same is true of Donald Trump, which is precisely why I’m so angered at the Republican hypocrisy on this issue. For me, if I don’t see at least a certain basic amount of good character, *along with* good policies, in a candidate, then I can’t vote for that person.
A week or so ago, Catholic apologist Mark Shea wrote another one of his many anti-Trump posts, and I left the following comment, thankful for his voice of reason in this election year’s insanity:
As a Catholic Christian, I’ve been arguing against *anyone* supporting Trump (*especially* Christians) for over a year on Facebook and in everyday life, because the man just does not have the basic, minimum, moral character *and* knowledge of policy that are important for good leaders. At first, many of my Christian friends seemed to agree. For months and months, as the primaries wore on, we all opposed Trump, seeming to affirm that we *could not* and *would not* bring ourselves to vote for him. However, since he has become the nominee, I’ve seen so many Christians, including many of my friends, decide to vote for him. For some of them, it is a very reluctant and resigned vote, out of a desperate hope (against the evidence, I would say) that Trump *may* appoint good Supreme Court judges and *may* work to protect religious liberty. I don’t agree with such a vote, and I can’t see much evidence to back it up, but I can at least understand the desperation behind it.
For *some* of my Christian friends though, they have seemingly gone from being *deeply concerned about and opposed* to Trump becoming President to *vocally backing and defending* him for President. In hindsight, it seems that their opposition to him was only for the primaries. It’s very difficult for me to see followers of Christ defending this man of such low, vile, untrustworthy character, especially when I strongly suspect that they *would not* be defending him, at all, if he were running as a Democrat. Some of them have truly convinced themselves that he is a pro-life Christian! It boggles my mind.
In any event, I am as pro-life as they come, but the ranting pro-life Trump supporter in this video now reminds of some of my friends, and I never thought that I would see such a day come: http://therightscoop.com/im-just-going-put-trump-supporter-video-right/
• I think Jason should be an a depressed existential Clown that tells philosophy jokes at children’s parties in the most monotonous voice possible.
o Descartes goes into a bar, sits down, and orders a beer. He finishes his beer, and the bartender says, “Descartes, would you like another?” Descartes responds, “I think not” and he disappears.
o Zeno walks halfway into a bar…
o A man walks up to a solipsist and repeatedly pummels him. “Why you hitting yourself?!”
• When it comes to spelling and pronunciation, the English language really doesn’t have rules. They’re more suggestions.
• In the days before internet pron, kids, we had to scavenge for our pron. Sometimes, we stared at the scrambled signal on the adult channels for hours hoping for a glimpse of boob.
• If people really have special supernatural healing powers, why the fuck aren’t they using them to end Pediatric cancer?
• Raise your daughter so she can protect herself.
• Can I show prospective boyfriends the hypothetical junior MMA trophies my daughter might win?
• Oh, I’ve heard stories of women being hit on at Starbucks, at the gym, walking down the street. I don’t think all men are pigs, but there are a lot of pigs who are men.
• I think the ‘smart’ one was the one that realized that web design pays much better than a Masters in theology degree.
• The church has pretty much had different groups popping up since the days of the apostles.
• Why “white pride” is racist and “black pride” or “gay pride’ isn’t:
o Because we’re the default.
o White, straight, Christian male in the United States is the default. We’re the ones with the power. And we have a history of keeping people who don’t fit that default down under our boots, denigrating their accomplishments, ridiculing their looks and aspirations, and keeping them invisible.
o So when a black person defies that ‘default standard’ and expresses pride in his ethnicity, he’s acting in defiance of a system that has been hurting him and people who look like him.
o When a white person expresses ‘white pride’, they’re standing up for that same system.
• I wouldn’t side with Peter in a disagreement. He seems pretty dense. I’d go with Thomas, good guy, asks a lot of questions, demands evidence.
• I think the conservative view of sex is predicated on the men being unable to control themselves and thus the woman becomes the gatekeeper of sexuality. It’s on the woman to say no. It’s on a woman to keep her man happy enough that he won’t want to cheat. It’s on the woman if she is assaulted or raped because she should have known better than to do or wear or say or go (X) when there are MEN about. Thus Hillary is responsible for Bill’s infidelity, while when a man does it, “it’s just boys being boys.”
• You’ve seen my Facebook feed, right? Facts, hypocrisy, none of that matters. They KNOW that Hillary Clinton is an evil, manipulative, criminal witch who is committed to destroying America for the One World Order. Doesn’t matter what is true. Their world view depends on Hillary being the literal embodiment of evil.
• Anyone who claims to have the moral high ground and votes for Trump can kindly go fuck themselves on questions of culture from now on.
• “Family” as used in Christian organization only means ‘anti-abortion’ and ‘anti-gay’.
• Because the problematic part about the “locker room” talk to evangelicals isn’t the ‘sexual assault’ angle, it’s that Trump used the word “Pussy.”
• You heard Rush Limbaugh’s quote, right? About how liberals get all upset and start shouting rape if there’s no consent.
• One of the things I’ve often said is that I wish the Protestants had brought over the idea of
penance as a part of repentance. That you don’t just get to say you’re sorry, you have to act and show that you are sorry. That and the Jewish concept of repentance which involves actively seeking out the parties you’ve wronged and trying to make amends. None of this “Well, I told Jesus I’m sorry, so it’s all good now.”
• Hillary personally pulled the trigger on everyone who died in Benghazi, don’t you know?
• Yes, Hillary is a murderer, you know? No evidence for that, but it’s an established fact on the right.
• Yeah, the new hope on the Evangelical side is that God’s plan is to use Trump to get Pence into office. So God will kill Trump after he wins the election and gets sworn in and then we get President Pence who will roll back the ‘bortion and the gheys and make America the best little theocracy. Harlots better beware, ya know?
• Why, yes, I can say that I support two men or two women wanting to love each other and have sex and still find it very objectionable that someone thinks he can sexually molest a woman without her consent.
• Come on, Christian, those Chinese slave prison laborers are doing the best they can putting those ATMs together!
Hi @christopherlake:disqus! Nice to see you around here again. 🙂
I noticed Kenneth has up and disappeared. I’m guessing it’s because of this… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e492ad2bae789a09d9e6aed9158ef8b72251256ff71be4103786a0fd97751b0.jpg
The death march is almost over… I will be very interested to see what happens to the Trump brand from here out
We shouldn’t be proud Americans because America wins too much?!? That’s crazy. Imagine telling Steve Jobs he shouldn’t be proud of his life work because its just too damn good. Lmao We live in an exceptional country and we DO contribute to it being exceptional by paying our taxes, working, and exercising our constitutional rights. My family came in from Germany in the 1930s. I am told the first Winsmann came chasing the american dream. Many immigrants come looking for the same and its my opinion that they should be proud to be citizens of the country that makes it possible. Who the hell moves to Amsterdam chasing the nanny state dream?!?
The Trump tape exposed so much hypocrisy. The conservative part is obvious, but also from the left. Michelle Obama says Trumps words “shook her to the core”. Seriously? Do the lyrics in Jay Z songs “shake her to the core”? If so, is it even possible for her to watch an episode of Game of Thrones? Lol Since when did liberals become such puritans? I don’t support Trump and for the first time in my life I won’t be voting for the GOP this year. But I think the tape commentary is much ado over nothing. We all knew he was a sexist womanizer from the go. Two points on the recording…..
1. He was actually extremely well behaved and even polite after leaving the “locker room”. He even tacitly reminded the woman he had a wife and was married. This gave me the impression that Bush was maybe not getting the hint that the BS was over.
2. Trumps comments were morally gross, but I didn’t get the impression that he was grabbing women against their will. Or “sexually assaulting” them. He said women LET HIM do whatever he wanted. This is probably the reality of a BILLIONAIRE TV star. I’ve never “grabbed’em by the pussy”, but as a collegiate athlete I was probably overly touchy feely with classmates. I can’t remember ever having a girl complain (although I could be forgetting something). Was that all ” sexual assault”? That’s goofy. With all his money if he was groping people against their will there would have been law suits everywhere ending in settlement.
I think there is some hyperventilation here that is unwarranted. He is a sexist Playboy Billionaire. Nothing in that tape should be news to anyone. We already knew he was a moral idiot.
But if he wins the presidency I will be horrified. A part of me died when Cruz endorsed him.
That’s a cool write in. I’ve been really struggling on who to vote for. I originally had settled for Johnson but he is pro-baby killing and that just bugs me. Trump claims to be pro life but I have zero confidence that he will even attempt ending abortion. Plus he is an idiot and totally unacceptable as POTUS. Then there is Hillary.. . I will never vote for Hillary. I think the really sucky part is the fact that most conservative Christians don’t have anyone representing them this election. Here is to hoping all the Trumpeters leave the GOP for something else after 2016
I think you’re putting too much weight on the “let him” point. It’s fairly obvious from what his alleged victims are saying that there was a huge power imbalance where these women knew that nothing good could come from them fighting back. Consent is meaningless in a context where the option to say no and to exert your autonomy has such huge costs attached that your life and career may well be entirely derailed. We saw this with the testimony of women who rejected the advances of Roger Ailes early on in their careers. They were essentially told “you’ll never work in this industry again” and for the most part, it was true. That’s not an environment where consent can even mean the same thing it means in a non-coercive environment.
I put 0.00 stock in the testimony of alleged victims that pop up a few weeks before Election Day. I might be reading too much into the “let him” comment, but it’s equally fallacious to read “sexual assault” into that video. It is conceivable that he has committed such an act….. but it’s just as easy to imagine the women in question being gold digger sluts that genuinely didn’t mind. Like I said, much ado over nothing
OK, so you might think that all these women plus all the people they told their stories to at the time are liars. It is after all a pillar of conservative (and religious) society to delegitimize women’s voices so I expect it and it’s no surprise. But when he says he just walks up to them and grabs them he himself is describing sexual assault. There’s no consent there. You may not grab a person’s body without their consent without committing sexual assault. That’s what sexual assault is. And when he walked in on women and teens in the dressing room of his pageant (he himself bragged about doing this – repeatedly), he didn’t procure their consent first. If he walked into a women’s bathroom in Target imagine the outrage! He would be destroying America and The Family by doing such a thing. But walking in on naked 15 year olds? Totes OK.
lol I realize that it’s a pillar of leftists to be a trigger warning snowflake so I expect it and it’s no surprise. But I still find it a little suspicious that these women didn’t say a peep until juuuuuuust now. When the political climate was also ripe for this kind of exposure back when Megan Kelly was grilling him. All too convenient. Also, when did he say he “just walks up and grabs them”? What I heard is that when you’re a star they LET YOU do whatever you want. Consent isn’t mentioned pro or con. I think that it’s possible that he walked around assaulting strangers left and right….. and it’s equally possible that he was referring to gold digging bimbos. We don’t know either way. So why pretend like you DO know?
That’s one tape. In other contexts he bragged about having access to the women in pageants who “can’t” say no to him. Several of these conversations were on the Howard Stern Show, so you can listen to them in the archives. Natasha Stoynoff has six witnesses from the time it happened. And all of the facts (like her boss reassigning her away from covering Trump for the magazine – at her request) support their stories.
I would suggest that the reason women don’t immediately come forward when someone like Trump or Cosby does this stuff is because the thought of facing this person with so many resources and public support in court is extremely intimidating.Then couple that with the fact that when women do come forward conservatives say (in the same breath) “why didn’t she come forward before she’s obviously a liar and a slut.” Do they hear themselves when they talk? Probably the reason she didn’t come forward is that it’s extremely uncomfortable to publicly be called a liar and a slut. She knew you wouldn’t believe her anyway, and that’s a second victimization piled on top of the first. I understand when it happens with someone like Cosby. He had a wholesome image and didn’t routinely and casually belittle and objectify women. But Trump brags about it and we still don’t believe them. They don’t have dicks and they don’t have powerful attorneys, so they must be lying or asking for it. That’s beautiful.
This is interesting:
From http://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-october-19-2016-presidential-election-horserace-clinton-trump/
1. So on the topic of the tape and the tape alone you are admitting its inconclusive and therefore blown out of proportion.
2. Everything you wrote about the allegations and the women alleging them is possible. Its also entirely possible that his accusers are full of shit. Women are not victims until proven liars. Men are not rapists until proven innocent. But under the extremely timely circumstances….. I not putting stock into their testimony until someone goes through the courts with criminal charges.
As a situational irony bonus….. Juanita Broadrick (whose rape claim is extremely plausible) was treated like shit and shamed for her testimony. I’m pretty sure there are more than a few women with vaginas and no attorneys that have thrown them under the bus as bimbos as recently as a few weeks ago. Do they even hear themselves speak?
I’m saying listen to that tape plus all of the recorded conversations where he’s talked about women and girls as young as ten. He views women as contemptible sex objects at best. He brags about non-consensual sexual contact on multiple occasions. Nobody had to make any allegations. He did it himself.
And Bill Clinton is not running for office. I’m looking at the candidates who are actually in this race.
Well I agree that Trump is a horrible morally bankrupt candidate. I also agree that he is a sexist pig. I’m just saying that the hysterical reaction to the tape is absurd. Maybe he has sexualky harassed women. I have no idea. But its not clear to me that he was bragging about it on that video.
I’ll probably not vote this year
I’m not sure why this response showed up earlier in the thread than where I posted it down at the bottom.
I think the reaction is due to the fact that he’s not talking about harassment – he’s talking about assault. I’m guessing if he was gay and he was bragging about walking up to men and grabbing them by the dick without their consent there would be rioting in the streets and he would have multiple death threats. Which maybe only shows that in our value system the bodily autonomy of straight men is more sacrosanct than the bodily autonomy of women.
This whole election cycle has been pretty depressing. Even the fact that almost 40% of Americans still seem to enthusiastically support him even though he’s repeatedly shown his true colors is sobering. I’ll be glad when it’s over, but still sobered by it.
Christian and Kenneth, no matter who wins (unless, by a miracle, it’s a good third-Party candidate!), I’m going to be in a state of mourning on November 9th… but I must admit that it *would* cheer me up a bit to see Kenneth with that shaved head with a tattoo of Christian’s face on it! 🙂 After all, Kenneth, promises are promises… Trump doesn’t keep his, but you’re a much better man than him! 🙂
I’ve been hearing, from both the MSM and various conservative media sources, that Trump and some of his backers are working to start a “Trump News Network,” much more seriously than they are supposedly “working” to win this election, and I believe it.
Last night Hillary defended partial birth abortion. There is no moral high ground to be had here. If it weren’t for the abortion issue I would vote Hillary with a clear conscience….. But I can’t find a candidate that I support that doesn’t contain major deal breaking flaws. My hope is that if enough people stay home, the respective parties willtry harder next time
He essentially launched it last night. I think he is underestimating the backlash that will come from this campaign. He will be put in exile in only a few months. And within years his supporters will deny ever backing him. Temporary insanity
Thank you for sharing your story of costliness. Yes. It is/can be costly. No idea what I am supposed to do with my ‘integrity’ which manifestly isn’t keeping me warm at night. But thank you all the same.