Last month, I wrote a post titled MAGA Mayor Adam Stockford Says Hillsdale, Michigan is a “Traditional Values” Community. Stockford is the mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan. Over the weekend, Stockford posted my article on his Facebook page. Of course, his MAGA-loving followers were quick to go for my jugular. One such neck-slitter was a retired soldier named Ronald Cook.
Cook made no attempt to interact with what I wrote, choosing instead to hurl invectives my way. I gave his comment and private messages the gravitas they so richly deserved. Enjoy! 🙂
Here are several other comments left by Stockford’s devotees.
All told, 90 people from Hillsdale read my post. Only three of them read more than one page. Not one of them clicked on the ABOUT page or the WHY? page. In fact, some of them couldn’t bear to finish reading my article. Yet, by reading one post about Adam Stockford and Hillsdale College, people such as Cook concluded I am a traitor, communist, Marxist, anti-American anti-Christ. And I am a bitter, piss-poor writer too. Let me give these fine folks a bit of the Bible: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude. (Proverbs 18:13)
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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So what if you were all of that, Bruce. This is Uhmericuh, and you have a right to be whatever you choose to be. If someone else dislikes that or likes that, it is really none of their business or concern.
” Yet, by reading one post about Adam Stockford and Hillsdale College, people such as Cook concluded I am a traitor, communist, Marxist, anti-American anti-Christ. And I am a bitter, piss-poor writer too. ”
You left out ‘rainbow suspender type’.
What the hell does that even mean??
“Rainbow suspender type” means someone supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Because caring about vulnerable Americans is a bad thing to conservatives.
Where in anywhere on this site does it say that it is purporting to be news website. Clearly telling your story and offering your opinions on the inanities of conservative evangelical christians is an easy way to rake in loads of cash in rural northwest Ohio that some mysterious organization funds (soros backed of course because why not at this point). These people obviously didn’t do the research like they tell everyone else to do cause clearly we didnt reach the right conclusions(their’s of course). Oh well better burn that pile of cash in a steam locomotive firebox, we might get somewhere with them.🤣
Interesting that they criticise your writing abilities yet, in the main, are incapable of proper sentence construction, are grammatically challenged, and can’t spell. Hmmm….
Geoff–You beat me to my comment!
To that, I add: How is it that such folks can claim to be followers of Christ when they resort to schoolyard bully tactics?
Geoff–You beat me to my comment.
They’re also incapable (or so it seems) of enacting the “Christian love” they profess.
GeoffT, you nailed it. People who can’t differentiate between “your” and “you’re” have no business judging someone’s writing abilities.
To those unpleasant x-tian commenters, I’d say,don’t they realise what a ‘bad witness’ they are to their jesus? I mean, how many of us return to a shop, or a service provider if an employee there was gratuitously rude to us first time we used or encountered them? Does anyone know anyone who got converted cos a fundy was so nasty to them or made offensive, unprovoked, personal comments about them? Cos I don’t.
Speaking personally, rudness is a complete turn off to me, as is not knowing the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’
‘Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing and conveys much.’ Erastus Wiman.
Matilda, I’ve run across these types saying stuff like “How DARE these non-Christians tell us we should be more Christian! They (we) don’t deserve it.” So, they seem to have completely abandoned the Biblical principles of loving your neighbor as yourself, and showing the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, but the greatest of these is love. They hate us, consider us enemies, and if they could get away with it they would kill us.
Matilda–Your point supports what I’ve come to believe: Christian fundamentalists aren’t messengers of, or vehicles for, Christian love. They can’t be: They really hate everybody and everything in the world that doesn’t fit their views. They would rather see it all, and us, destroyed than to have any personal relationship or or government guided by fairness and empathy, let alone love.
In other words, they’re nihilists. They wouldn’t care if the whole world were destroyed as long as their beliefs were left.
The good news is that, whether or not they realize it, they’re destroying Christianity. My only hope is that they don’t destroy me simply for being who I am (as some of them want to do), or anyone or anything else they don’t approve of.
All any of them are doing, is showing how little they care for the values they claim to uphold, but then, how often do they care about the values they claim to honour?
I think the real anti-Christ is going to pissed at Mayer Adam for falsely claiming Bruce is the anti-Christ.
😉
My typical interaction with red hats …
Them: “(xxx) is a Communist!” (or “xxx attitude reeks of Communism!”)
Me: “Which tenet of Communism is being manifested?”
Them: either some variation of “don’t play games with me, you know what it is!” (which, rather notably, is not an answer) … or silence. The latter has played out at least twice with our friend Derrick, which is rather surprising considering his love of semantics.
Christian Love: a wonder to behold.
Christian Love: An oxymoron writ large. 😀
They are probably the same types who wonder each end of the political spectrum are not talking with each other as we “libtards” are such delicate snowflakes.
Me asking a question of a MAGA: “Define what you mean by (communist, socialist, CRT, patriot…).”
Them: “Democrats are evil and stupid and Joe Biden pooped his pants and caused inflation and the border crisis and wants to take our guns and schools are indoctrinating our children and turning them all gay and transgender and grooming them and won’t let kids pray or have Bibles.”
Most of those faux Christian writers call Bruce a communist, etc, even though he shows no signs of such beliefs. They are engaging in “virtue signaling” as a substitute for thinking.
On my previous comment (which isn’t showing up?) I suggested that those labeling Bruce a communist in the absence of evidence are virtue signalling to their compatriots.
Then I found this article. I broke the link with a few spaces because it may be bad practice to put a link in one person’s page to someone else’s page.
Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Manipulators Are More Likely To Engage in ‘Virtuous Victim Signaling,’ Says Study
https://reason.com/2020/07/07/
narcissists-psychopaths-and-manipulators-are-more-likely-to-engage-in-virtuous-victim-signaling-says-study/
Shawn Schultz proves that critical thinking skills are a rare skillset in ‘murica. This is Bruce’s blog, it is Bruce’s story to tell and I’m glad I stumbled over it. So maybe Shawn should turn his ire toward Fox (non)News as they have a very big problem not presenting both sides of an issue – as well as telling the truth (bearing false witness anyone??)
“ Instead they just project their own duplicity and cognitive dissonance through wild assumptions and appeals to emotion.”
Yeah…how does on project their cognitive dissonance?
Let’s be honest here, the masters of cognitive dissonance are many Christians and conservatives. And it is not at all ironic that Brian Haire, in his response, is basically showing exactly how projection works, and how cognitive dissonance can be so overwhelming that a person completely rejects any consideration of a thought that differs from their own.