I'm losing count of my right-wing acquaintances from high school days on Facebook, and the one I have in mind could qualify as the Tasteful Jesus Lady. Her profile pictures show a rather expensively dressed, coiffed, and made-up person, who (judging from some photos of her with her husband) married money. She's so tasteful that I feel a bit bad about picking on her, but she's been dumping nasty junk on the Facebook superhighway lately, so here goes. There was the one about how prayer should be allowed in classrooms. I and another person pointed out that prayer is already allowed in classrooms -- but public schools aren't allowed to require it. Children may pray on their own when they wish. So what, I asked, did she have in mind when she put that meme in her timeline?
One handy thing about memes, of course, is that they give people plausible deniability. They can (and do) say I didn't mean anything, I'm just passing it along, maybe it'll provoke thought! The last thing such people are interested in is thought, of course. The Tasteful Jesus Lady was evasive; very possibly, like many people, she had no idea what the issue was. A lot of people are quite happy to blur the distinction between a student's personal prayer before class and a school making children pray. I don't know anything about anything, I just love Jesus!
Last week she posted a meme about how if America would pray, everything would be nice. I pointed out that America is and has always been a religion-crazed country, more than most nations outside of Iran or Saudi Arabia, and that this was even more true when we were slaughtering Indians and selling slaves south to hellholes. The Confederacy was an explicitly Christian nation. But leave ancient history out of it. Right now the people who talk most about turning America back to God are pushing all kinds of hateful agendas. Her response: the people in the past were thinking as men think, not as God thinks. And if more people were on their knees today, "we wouldn't be having this conversation." Oh, I think we would, though if she were on her knees she wouldn't be posting theocratic bullshit on Facebook, would she?
Which brings me more or less up to date. Yesterday TJL posted one of those memes with a quizzical-looking baby asking "Why the heck do I have to press 1 for English? Did America move?" By the time I saw it, one of her other friends had asked in a comment (all spelling sic; I've replaced TJL's name with my pseudonym for her, to protect the guilty):
I have often wondered if we were traveling in Germany,Russia or spain.Do they have an alternate language besides there native tounge.What is it?English,Spanish,or French.Or are we the only country that caters to a race of people who refuse to speak our native tounge.Should we not cater to other languages.Korean,Japaneese,Philipino,ect.Since you have traveled to other countries. [TJL] do you know what they do there?There are 10 # on the phone.It seems like we should be able to choose . or to speak only English.TJL replied [also sic]:
A lot of of other countries speak English ,but they don't cater to one language ,if you speak English to them most try to speak it back to you...but they do not use English language first and asked to press 1 for their own language and for the people I know that are Americans that live in other countries, learn that language of that country...I replied to both of them at some length. They didn't reply, though a couple of other people 'liked' my comments. Today I did an online search for an image, ran it through a meme editor, and posted it:
I suspect that at least some older Koreans must wonder about that. Which led to this one:
Next I succumbed to Godwin's Law. I haven't posted this one to Facebook. Yet.
P.S. A different high school friend posted this. I have no idea of the context, and it doesn't matter. But one response to the "learn to speak English!" people might be, "Sure, you first."
When???? Will I learn to keep my "BIG" mouth Shut ?????? Another one bites the "Dust" !!!!!
