CSotD: Blessings For You and Blasphemy
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I’m a recovering Catholic and have been for half a century or so, but it happens that even before I saw Necessary’s cartoon, I was thinking that they never should have stopped burning heretics at the stake. Not all heretics, mind you. Not me, certainly.
I’m not Torquemada and I don’t insist on everyone becoming Roman Catholic, but I think toasting a few hypocrites might resolve a few issues, starting, as I’ve said before, with people who call themselves Roman Catholic but don’t accept the Pope as Vicar of Christ on Earth.
I suspect that a large number of the hateful anti-papal nonsense at Xitter is coming from bots, and you can’t really tie bots to stakes and burn them, though I seem to remember some countermeasure from years ago that involved following the chain of posting and frying the servers at the end. Good times!
But I’m thinking more of creating a mashup of the Spanish Inquisition with the Recording Industry Association of America, who used to single out some helpless dweeb who was downloading music and sue him for a kabillion dollars to scare everyone else.
Similarly, this New Inquisition could fry some heretical clown not so much to stop him as to serve as a warning to others. And it would only be tangentially religious; it’s more a matter of preserving good order in society, as it was when King Edward gently reproved William Wallace.
Though society seems rather good at maintaining its own order, having recoiled from the blasphemous idiocy of this illustration, which Dear Leader himself shared. I like, BTW, that the mainstream media has been careful to identify it as an AI illustration, presumably to keep people from thinking it was a photograph.
I was hesitant to feature Nick Anderson’s response, because it’s apt but it doesn’t represent a lot of artistic heavy lifting and I’m loathe to feature AI even when applied sarcastically.
But as the day wore on and the shellacking continued, it seemed to be the only variant that included some actual human effort. The rest were entirely programmed, and I shouldn’t have giggled but I did.
Of course, you can’t credit them because it’s hard to trace back to whoever gave the robot their instructions, but this one certainly did cut to the chase, and not only does it make a quasitheological point, but it preserves the original characters, which is an important element of satire.
While this one changes the cast completely, which is quite the opposite approach of the previous example, and put me on the floor.
Meanwhile, the Chief Blasphemer, having taken a significant flogging over at Xitter from outraged Christians of all kinds, took down the original piece, explaining that he didn’t realize the fake press would lie and say it made him look like he thought he was Jesus. He just thought it depicted him as a doctor.
Which drew this illustration of what the well-dressed medical staff is wearing this season.
There’s always been that question of whether Trump is consciously lying or believes his own BS, but the “doctor” explanation is a variant of “the dog ate my homework” from a guy whose boarding school didn’t allow dogs on campus.
It’s also further evidence that he may sell Bibles, but he’s never opened one, and couldn’t tell Jesus Christ from Barabbas, much less know which one deserved to be released.
Note that there is no religious requirement for holding office in the United States, and, in fact, the Constitution (remember that?) explicitly forbids it, though the polls don’t appear to. But, as Jennings suggests, the problem comes not when we quarrel over which branch of what religion is superior, but, rather, when we have a madman in power who places himself above the deity he wasn’t required to believe in anyway.
There’s a bit of faux-cowboy wisdom that says, “Never miss a good chance to shut up.”
That opportunity sure whizzed by.
The Jesus outfit was quickly picked up by cartoonists, and while Slyngstad is one of several who compared Dear Leader with the Original, his captioning is not only scripturally sound but refers to the costume
That lifts it above the usual cartoon of MAGA extremists renouncing the Sermon on the Mount, a theme we’ve seen since Dear Leader first came to office.
Though a cartoonist shouldn’t shy away from a familiar theme if he can add some pointed criticism and relevant commentary, and, instead of having either the MAGA people or Trump object to the Sermon, McKee supplants Jesus with Mesus, twists the words as Dear Leader might, and then adds a touch of commercial larceny to the tale of loaves and fishes.
I suppose this would be offensive, if he were applying it to your run-of-the-mill egotistical politician, but this is like one of those moments in Law & Order, where the DA meets an objection by pointing out that the defendant opened the door and the judge agrees, letting the line of questioning proceed. If Trump didn’t want to be mocked for his blasphemy, he shouldn’t have raised the issue.
Though Mark Fiore gets special credit for keeping things simple.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
To throw a perfume on the violet
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
— King John, Act 4, Scene 2
Unless you’re going to be really funny, in which case, go for it.
I’ve seen people seriously talk about the Avignon anti-papacy period lately, as if it had some theological basis, but I recently finished A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant history of the 14th Century, and Alcaraz delivers the pun of that century as well as this one.
It was not theological. It was a lot of over-armed, overly ambitious warlords pretending to care about one pope or antipope or another in order to snatch land from each other.
I’d say, “perhaps you had to be there,” but perhaps you didn’t.
The consolation for all this blasphemy and bad vibes being that maybe they’re right about Hell after all, in which case, that’ll learn’ya.
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