A Christmas of Crazy: CPAC begins

fangblackbone wrote:
Now, I don't know anything about these particular guys, but it amazes me that anyone would go to a convention that professes to hate "their kind" so much.

Is it really that difficult? There is a significant portion of the population that have different rules that apply to themselves versus rules that apply to others. There are enough of them to have national political clout.

Karl Rove.

Paleocon wrote:

I have been thinking about this sort of thing a bit lately because I'm going through the police department selection process, but if someone declared that he was, in the past, a habitual user of marijuana because it was mandated by his religion, could he sue a police department for religious discrimination if they eliminated him from the selection process due to his past drug use?

edit: While we're at it, why limit it to past drug use? Can someone now sue an employer for wrongful termination if he is fired for failing a drug test if he is able to document that cannabis use is consistent with his religious beliefs?

Replace 'drug' in your post with 'alcohol', and re-read it.

In that light, your first paragraph basically boils down to "can an employer discriminate against a potential's employee's past behaviour as opposed to their current behaviour?". If I was a reformed alcoholic, could they legitmately discriminate against me during the hiring process?

The second paragraph is muddying the waters some, but once again, let's look at it for booze instead of drugs. Can an employer fire someone for coming to work intoxicated and having a blood test back that up? Yes, they most definitely can, even if The Great God Pruitt demands that I pay Him tribute by necking a fifth of whiskey every lunchtime.

Jonman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I have been thinking about this sort of thing a bit lately because I'm going through the police department selection process, but if someone declared that he was, in the past, a habitual user of marijuana because it was mandated by his religion, could he sue a police department for religious discrimination if they eliminated him from the selection process due to his past drug use?

edit: While we're at it, why limit it to past drug use? Can someone now sue an employer for wrongful termination if he is fired for failing a drug test if he is able to document that cannabis use is consistent with his religious beliefs?

Replace 'drug' in your post with 'alcohol', and re-read it.

In that light, your first paragraph basically boils down to "can an employer discriminate against a potential's employee's past behaviour as opposed to their current behaviour?". If I was a reformed alcoholic, could they legitmately discriminate against me during the hiring process?

The second paragraph is muddying the waters some, but once again, let's look at it for booze instead of drugs. Can an employer fire someone for coming to work intoxicated and having a blood test back that up? Yes, they most definitely can, even if The Great God Pruitt demands that I pay Him tribute by necking a fifth of whiskey every lunchtime.

That's in a logical, practical world. In the world where paying for your employee's health insurance is a violation of religious freedom and you can violate the Americans with Disabilities Act as long as it's for religious reasons...I'm not sure you're right.

Pruitt is a harsh but loving God. Those who defy Pruitt's mandate to neck a fifth of whiskey before sunset daily risk the wrath of the Terrible.

Seth wrote:

Pruitt is a harsh but loving God. Those who defy Pruitt's mandate to neck a fifth of whiskey before sunset daily risk the wrath of the Terrible.

S'wot I *hic* tried to tell the boss, but 'e wazzn't 'aving any *hic* of it. Bloody sacked me on the spot, so 'e did. 'S the last time I offer him a swig 'o the old Holy Sacra*hic*ment.

Jonman wrote:
Seth wrote:

Pruitt is a harsh but loving God. Those who defy Pruitt's mandate to neck a fifth of whiskey before sunset daily risk the wrath of the Terrible.

S'wot I *hic* tried to tell the boss, but 'e wazzn't 'aving any *hic* of it. Bloody sacked me on the spot, so 'e did. 'S the last time I offer him a swig 'o the old Holy Sacra*hic*ment.

Did you playfully smash a pint glass in his face (dislodging two of his remaining teeth) before vomiting on the snooker table?

Paleocon wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Seth wrote:

Pruitt is a harsh but loving God. Those who defy Pruitt's mandate to neck a fifth of whiskey before sunset daily risk the wrath of the Terrible.

S'wot I *hic* tried to tell the boss, but 'e wazzn't 'aving any *hic* of it. Bloody sacked me on the spot, so 'e did. 'S the last time I offer him a swig 'o the old Holy Sacra*hic*ment.

Did you playfully smash a pint glass in his face (dislodging two of his remaining teeth) before vomiting on the snooker table?

Only *after* he fired me, as per The Holy Book of Pruitt.

Jonman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Seth wrote:

Pruitt is a harsh but loving God. Those who defy Pruitt's mandate to neck a fifth of whiskey before sunset daily risk the wrath of the Terrible.

S'wot I *hic* tried to tell the boss, but 'e wazzn't 'aving any *hic* of it. Bloody sacked me on the spot, so 'e did. 'S the last time I offer him a swig 'o the old Holy Sacra*hic*ment.

Did you playfully smash a pint glass in his face (dislodging two of his remaining teeth) before vomiting on the snooker table?

Only *after* he fired me, as per The Holy Book of Pruitt.

Was that before or after enjoying a traditional English breakfast of boiled sheep's pancreas, warm beer, and rancid chocolate?

You can go after the other stuff, Paleo, but the full English Breakfast is indeed a blessing from the gods. It's sacrosanct. Mock it not, lest it be withheld on your next trip to the UK for reasons you can't quite put down to coincidence....

Robear wrote:

You can go after the other stuff, Paleo, but the full English Breakfast is indeed a blessing from the gods. It's sacrosanct. Mock it not, lest it be withheld on your next trip to the UK for reasons you can't quite put down to coincidence....

Shh, the more he mocks it, the more people will be put off, the more black pudding there'll be for you and me. Win-win!

Jonman wrote:
Robear wrote:

You can go after the other stuff, Paleo, but the full English Breakfast is indeed a blessing from the gods. It's sacrosanct. Mock it not, lest it be withheld on your next trip to the UK for reasons you can't quite put down to coincidence....

Shh, the more he mocks it, the more people will be put off, the more black pudding there'll be for you and me. Win-win!

You can keep your blood sausage and tomatoes, but I've been misappropriating your beans and mushrooms for years!

Kraint wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Robear wrote:

You can go after the other stuff, Paleo, but the full English Breakfast is indeed a blessing from the gods. It's sacrosanct. Mock it not, lest it be withheld on your next trip to the UK for reasons you can't quite put down to coincidence....

Shh, the more he mocks it, the more people will be put off, the more black pudding there'll be for you and me. Win-win!

You can keep your blood sausage and tomatoes, but I've been misappropriating your beans and mushrooms for years!

I.. I don't even.. #euphemismoverload

Given all the discussion we've been having about women, contraception, and conservative values I found the following to be very interesting.

Apparently there was a bit of tsk-tsking in the conservative bloggosphere about inappropriate behavior some saw during the conference.

Erick Erickson at Red State was deeply offended when he saw several young male CPAC attendees at the local CVS buying condoms. What was wrong with that? He felt that too many male CPAC attendees were treating the conference "like an extension of their college days doing their best to hook up before passing out" instead of acting like good little boys. The kicker was he ended his rant with this:

As conservatives, we believe in self-government. With that belief comes the duty of personal responsibility. We should accept that duty as the opportunity to do what is right, not as license to behave like fools.

Funny that conservative men buying condoms isn't seen as personal responsibility, but rather a symptom of what's wrong in society.

Enough with the CPAC men. What about the women?

Melissa Clouthier thought too many female CPAC attendees were dressed like "two-dollar whores" so she came up with several rules for who proper conservative women should dress. The first rule was "no cleavage" because CPAC is a place where "ideas are the priority, [and] a dude thinking about your ta-tas is counter-productive."

She went on to bemoan how young conservative women can't seem to "make the connection that a young man is not interested in getting married and making babies with a girl who is so easy as to have a one-night stand over a CPAC weekend."

Just to hammer home the point that it really is just all about sex when it comes to conservatives, Clouthier said:

The conservative movement means conservative values–promoting behavior that will lead to a sound society. Family is at the basis of this. Sexuality, and the self-management of it, is at the core of family.

That's a perfect example, OG. It's so good we could almost stop the thread right there.

This thinking is freaking everywhere on the conservative side of the aisle. They are not fighting for what they claim they are. It's not about babies, it's about sex.

OG_slinger wrote:
The conservative movement means conservative values–promoting behavior that will lead to a sound society. Family is at the basis of this. Sexuality, and the self-management of it, is at the core of family.

I'm confused.

Surely buying condoms when you're single *is* self-management of your sexuality? Unless the implication is that everyone remain celibate until married, which, while some see that as admirable, I see as shamefully naive. Why? Because a smart way to ensure that your family ends up strong is to ensure sexual compatibility with your potential spouse-to-be before you find yourself in a sexually-frustrated marriage, cheating on your spouse to get your needs met, or getting divorced.

Because, as she rightly points out, "sexuality is at the core of family".

Doublethink much?

Malor wrote:

That's a perfect example, OG. It's so good we could almost stop the thread right there.

This thinking is freaking everywhere on the conservative side of the aisle. They are not fighting for what they claim they are. It's not about babies, it's about sex.

It's not about your freedom, it's never been about your freedom. It's about their freedom, which apparently was bestowed upon them by the founding fathers, to tell you what you can and can't do with your freedom.

Jonman wrote:

Unless the implication is that everyone remain celibate until married, which, while some see that as admirable, I see as shamefully naive.

Well, it is CPAC. Complaining about that kind of thing at CPAC is kind of like a proctologist complaining about how he has to deal with a$$ holes all day.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Unless the implication is that everyone remain celibate until married, which, while some see that as admirable, I see as shamefully naive.

Well, it is CPAC. Complaining about that kind of thing at CPAC is kind of like a proctologist complaining about how he has to deal with a$$ holes all day.

I think it would be more like a proctologist complaining that he sometimes gets poo on his fingers.

Sure, Dr Ben Dover might prefer no doodoo on his digits, but expecting that in his chosen career flies in the face of reality.

That's the complaint. By their lights, those people aren't supposed to having sex at all. To them, "managing your sexuality" is keeping it in your pants until you're married.

Oh, and don't forget they're supposed to stay married forever no matter what, so the test drive shouldn't be necessary under those circumstances. You get married, and then you deal with whatever you have to and get your reward in heaven.

By these comments, please don't mistake me for a proponent of anything these repugnant people do or say. I'm of the "do the best you can and be EXTREMELY careful no matter what you do" camp. I sewed little pockets with condoms in them into my daughter's bras while she was still dating her husband. I don't know if things ever got to a point where he found one. But whatever they decided to do or not do, they made that choice together. These people harping on other people's choices like that is awful to me.

Jonman wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
The conservative movement means conservative values–promoting behavior that will lead to a sound society. Family is at the basis of this. Sexuality, and the self-management of it, is at the core of family.

I'm confused.

Surely buying condoms when you're single *is* self-management of your sexuality? Unless the implication is that everyone remain celibate until married, which, while some see that as admirable, I see as shamefully naive. Why? Because a smart way to ensure that your family ends up strong is to ensure sexual compatibility with your potential spouse-to-be before you find yourself in a sexually-frustrated marriage, cheating on your spouse to get your needs met, or getting divorced.

Because, as she rightly points out, "sexuality is at the core of family".

Doublethink much?

I think you're supposed to CPAC bareback, at least if the Craigslist ads are anything to go by.

mudbunny wrote:
RolandofGilead wrote:
Bear wrote:

I think the current generation of children are the most exposed, most open, most accepting group we've ever had. Technology is only going to accelerate that process. There a numerous signs that make me think that much of the underlying ugliness that forms the most fundamentalist base of Conservatism is dying and they know it.

You mean the generation where http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying has led to high-profile suicides?
Yep, technology solves everything.

That is an incredible leap that you made there. Bear isn't saying that technology will solve everything. Just that it is helping make today's kids much more exposed, open and accepting.

That has *nothing* to do with whether they are also bullies.

Darn it, I can't tell whether you're saying that in defense or against my point.

re:cleavage: being a distraction from ideas:
It's all about role models. How can the nice conservative women dress 'appropriately' when they have Fox News Anchors to compare themselves to?

momgamer wrote:

Oh, and don't forget they're supposed to stay married forever no matter what, so the test drive shouldn't be necessary under those circumstances. You get married, and then you deal with whatever you have to and get your reward in heaven.

And yet where's the conservative outcry over easy and widespread access to divorce?

If you're going to be batsh*t crazy, at least be consistently batsh*t crazy.

Jonman wrote:
momgamer wrote:

Oh, and don't forget they're supposed to stay married forever no matter what, so the test drive shouldn't be necessary under those circumstances. You get married, and then you deal with whatever you have to and get your reward in heaven.

And yet where's the conservative outcry over easy and widespread access to divorce?

If you're going to be batsh*t crazy, at least be consistently batsh*t crazy.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. Don't even get me started on that one.

Conservatives aren't concerned about behavior; they're concerned about the appearance of behavior. It's not like there's some massive statistical difference in the divorce rates for Republicans or Democrats. It's not like one party has a lock on marital fidelity. It's been repeatedly proven that abstinence-only sex education is a farce, and that students who take "virgin until marriage" pledges screw each other with the exact same regularity as students who don't.

It doesn't matter what you do, it's what you say. Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer on his third wife, can talk about "Defending Marriage", because nobody actually cares if he walks the talk. I also don't think most conservatives care if people are gay, as long as they pretend to be straight. The problem is that the conservative viewpoint these days is about trying to reclaim an idyllic 1950s America that never existed, where everybody was married, had two kids, and was either white or is willing to pretend to be. It's an image, pure and simple, and as long as people display that image, nobody really cares who's screwing who.

momgamer wrote:

I sewed little pockets with condoms in them into my daughter's bras while she was still dating her husband.

As a father of 2 daughters, allow me to say the following:

The pattern for this. I want please!!

Conservatives sold their collective souls to the religious right and will continue to tether their successes to that level extremism until someone has the guts to tell them to go pound sand.

I am highly amused by the clamoring from them over gay marriage, but, as noted above, mention divorce, and the silence is deafening, which I find exceptionally odd since there is a definitive prohibition against divorce in Gospels (although there is an exception in one Gospel for infidelity reasons).

I have yet to hear any explanation as to why conservative Christians refuse to go to war over divorce allowance with the fervor they do over abortion or gay marriage.

mudbunny wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I sewed little pockets with condoms in them into my daughter's bras while she was still dating her husband.

As a father of 2 daughters, allow me to say the following:

The pattern for this. I want please!!

There really isn't a pattern, per se. It's too individual. You have to think about it based on the dimensions of your daughters, if you know what I mean. The type of bras they like to wear are a factor. If they're wearing those little teeny demi-cups you are going to have a harder time to find a place to put it where it isn't going to poke or pinch. And sports bras are so formless it's hard to get anything done that doesn't bind or gather. A lot also depends on your sewing skills. Sewing underwear is actually rather tricky seamstress stuff.

Materials
=================
1 condom per bra - Important to have these first because that's actually your template. Don't get the hard cased ones they've started to sell now. Imagine tucking one in your jock strap with the Boys and sitting down and you'll get the general idea of why.
Hand-sewing tools - needle, several colors of thread, scissors, pins, etc
Iron - When sewing this small, you can't skimp on pressing the seams or you'll go bonkers. Listen to the voice of experience on this one.
Fabric - A selection of remnants that can give you 1 3/4" or so squares to form the pockets and bits for the flaps and other decorations. If you're using anything delicate like lace, I'd also get some fusible webbing. Think about the bras as you choose. Odds are you can't match them exactly (just plain white seems to be right out of fashion) so think about coordination. Or look at the trims on the bra already and try to work something with that. Some fabric stores sell grab-bags of small bits of fabric for making doll-clothes with. That is the motherlode for stuff like this.

Optional: Ribbon, trims, buttons, fabric paints, embroidery materials, etc. Any sort of soft, non-pokey embellishment you are up to.

Getting their Underwear
=================
Tactics are different, depending on how open you're being about this. I told her flat out I was doing it, and while she was embarrassed it wasn't difficult. I did it over the course of several evenings by simply going to her drawer and getting them.

If you're trying to do it quietly and then have theTalk, then the hardest part is stealing all their underwear. If I'd had to I'd probably just have told them they had to clean their room to Regimental Standard or they couldn't go out on Friday. Then, when they put every piece of fabric not glued down to the sub-floor into the laundry, it's relatively simple to pick them out of Mt. Washmore. Just mine the veins of still-folded clothes and they should be there. Don't just do it on the fancy ones they would wear on a date; do all of them.

Design
=================
Take each bra and choose the fabric and basic idea for trims. The most comfortable place to put them is on the inside edge of a cup, right above any wires but below where the strap hooks in. If the cups are all lace, you're gonna have a harder time working with it.

You have some choices to make about how you want this to end up. Do you want it to be a "secret" pocket, or something that's very easy to see. Both work well, depending on the bra. In the case of my daughter, they were on top, but they were fairly well matched with the bras and had cute little flaps on them with buttons and bows and ribbon trims and whatnot and where I couldn't match them, I expanded the trimmings onto the bra itself to tie things together. I was trying to make them like they were a feature of the bra.

Place a condom on a piece of paper, and trace around it with a pencil. Use a ruler to add a quarter inch to each side to give some room to actually be able to get them in and out of the pocket once it's sewn down. Then add another quarter inch all the way around that for seam allowance. That's your pattern.

Cut around the outer edge of the paper, then pin that to the fabric you've chosen and cut it out. I use a hemming marker to mark the two inner trace lines, then fold along the outer one and press, trimming out the corners so it doesn't bunch.

Sewing
=================
Pin to the bra, and then hand-stitch 1/8th of an inch in from the edge on three sides, leaving either the top or inner edge open. You can make it as simple as that, or go ape with any sort of fancy work you like.

Important note: Remember to take out the condoms when you're doing the laundry. Being washed isn't good for them. Mercifully no one ever noticed or asked why there were three or four condoms sitting on top of my dryer on laundry days.

=================

That said, I think a bit of clarification is in order. I didn't do this because I thought she was going to just go out and start experimenting all over the place now that she had a more-than-willing accomplice and had discovered the fine art of necking at the front door. We are religious (in fact she's more hardcore than I am about it), and yeah, I had made it clear that I thought they should wait. But I also know that it's her choice. It was a mark of me respecting the fact that she was becoming a woman, and that it was possible for my little angel to do these very grown up things.

I wanted her to understand that she's part of decision too, and it's not something she can just dump off on him. She needed to really think about that and make responsible choices. And to be brutally frank I'd already been through two pregnancy scares with one of her brothers. She knew the odds, but the stakes on this decision are just too high to fool around with.

She wasn't happy, but she understood. It's kind of a running joke now that I need to do this for her sister; she's finally got a boyfriend that she would even let stand at home-plate much less round any base. It's a different situation now, though. The married one was barely 17 when I did it for her. They're 21 now. So far I've just mentioned that I could do it for her, if she wanted.

Phoenix Rev wrote:

Conservatives sold their collective souls to the religious right and will continue to tether their successes to that level extremism until someone has the guts to tell them to go pound sand.

I am highly amused by the clamoring from them over gay marriage, but, as noted above, mention divorce, and the silence is deafening, which I find exceptionally odd since there is a definitive prohibition against divorce in Gospels (although there is an exception in one Gospel for infidelity reasons).

I have yet to hear any explanation as to why conservative Christians refuse to go to war over divorce allowance with the fervor they do over abortion or gay marriage.

I'm not amused. I'm pissed off, and I'd like to borrow Teddy Roosevelt's big stick.

There's a lot of stuff in the Gospels that people have managed to "contextualize" their way around. I've asked my pastor why they can talk their way around the proscription against remarriage (in fact he himself is remarried) and about twenty other things, but can't seem to do that for homosexuality. That's just an example of the many points of what I can only think of as hypocrisy I keep running into. I haven't gotten a straight answer yet. I doubt there is one.

I've prayed and studied this for years. It's part of why I don't date. But it's becoming a dealbreaker for me. I'm trying to not make any huge decisions now because of my health issues. I don't trust my long-range thinking right now. But there's going to have to be a pretty serious come-to-Jesus meeting between me and him fairly soon.

What do you do if you're a get-tough-on-immigration sheriff in Arizona and your Mexican ex-lover threatens to go to the media about your relationship? Why threaten to deport him, of course.

What does this have to do with CPAC? Well Babeu spoke at CPAC this year about how them dirty immigrants are ruining America.

Just to cap off all this craziness, 2012 marked the return of the Family Research Council as a major sponsor of CPAC and the banning of GOProud. FRC (and a bunch of others) boycotted CPAC the past couple of years because the conference organizers allowed GOProud to attend, something FRC thought was antithetical to true conservative values.

Phoenix Rev wrote:

I am highly amused by the clamoring from them over gay marriage, but, as noted above, mention divorce, and the silence is deafening, which I find exceptionally odd since there is a definitive prohibition against divorce in Gospels (although there is an exception in one Gospel for infidelity reasons).

I have yet to hear any explanation as to why conservative Christians refuse to go to war over divorce allowance with the fervor they do over abortion or gay marriage.

I don't think the lack of attacks on divorce are examples of hypocrisy. The evangelical Christians I know (including my parents) are actually very anti-divorce, and believe what you mentioned above: divorce should be impermissible except (possibly) in cases of infidelity. However, I think they don't fight it like they do abortion for a couple reasons:

1. Divorce is something they grew up around, and are accustomed to. That's different than legalized abortion, which is relatively new compared to divorce.

2. I think they know that battling divorce is a lost cause, because that battle was fought over a hundred years ago. It's clearly not something they will be able to change now, so they just abide by their beliefs in their own lives while mildly disapproving of those people who do get divorced. For example, my parents won't attend weddings of divorced people.

3. People who believe that life begins at conception see abortion as murder, while divorce doesn't involve death. To them, that makes abortion a more significant, emotional, and disgusting crime (though, I believe the Bible says God sees all sins as equal, so I'm not sure that's the right attitude for them to have).