This is a census year in the United States. Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires a complete enumeration every ten years.
[An] Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
But Michele Bachmann won't be participating.
She claims it has something to do with WWII Japanese American internment camps, but I think it's all about the Bible. Michele knows her Bible too well to participate in a God-damned government census.
Remember what happened with David's census? God killed 70,000 men (and who knows how many women and children) in three days of pestilence.
Why did God kill so many people? Because David had a census.
David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel ... and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.
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And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David.
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And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel.
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So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 1 Chronicles 21:2-14
And why did David have the census?
Because Satan told him to.
And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. 1 Chronicles 21:1
Michele Bachmann knows that if Satan could fool David, a man after God's own heart, he sure as hell could fool the authors of the U.S. Constitution.
Note: Michele also knows that Satan had help in inspiring the David's census.
And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. 2 Samuel 24:1
Satan and God worked on it together. But that's beside the point. God got angry and he and/or Satan inspired David to have a census and then God killed a couple hundred thousand people because of the census.
So it doesn't matter whether the 2010 census was inspired by God or Satan or both. God hates censuses, and he kills those that participate in them.
21 comments:
But according to Luke, Jesus was born in Bethlehem because his parents were taking part in a Roman census. And if he hadn't been born there -- maybe he couldn't have been the Messiah! So shouldn't that makes censuses (censi?) a good thing for Ms. Bachmann.
[Matthew has a completely different story, of course].
Yeah, that's true, vp.
God isn't entirely consistent on censuses (or anything else, as far as I can tell).
But still, if you were a believer (like Michelle Bachmann), wouldn't David's census make you nervous? God certainly hated that census (and he loved David to death). So maybe he wouldn't like ours all that much either.
With a God like that, who wants to take a chance? (Especially when you're an anti-government teabagger.)
It's far more complicated than that; God ordered a census in the book of Numbers, and Solomon took a census with no negative repercussions. David's inexplicably evil census is a rather strange exception to the rule, I'd say.
(In case you're wondering, this fundie is all for the census, although I'm also a godless liberal, so go figure.)
If God hated David's census so much, why not punish HIM for it, rather than sending pestilence and plague on the poor people under his rule? They were just complying with their ruler's demands, after all...
Interestingly, when God orderes the very first census in Exodus 30, He warns that if it's not accompanied by an offering, a plague could result.
Also, whatever is going on, Joab and the "captains of the host" warn David that it's a bad idea, but he refuses to listen. While this seems wrong (even to me) it certainly didn't come without warning.
Brucker: So sometimes, God goes nuts and kills tens of thousands of people when a census is taken, and sometimes it doesn't bother him at all?
How can you be sure that this census is OK when David's census wasn't?
I know it's complicated; it's also completely nonsensical.
Yahweh was afraid of being gerrymandered out of office by David's census which favored Baal.
Hey, if believers can pull answers out of their orifices...
I am betting that she does take the census but will claim she hasn't. She knows that she is risking losing even more of her kindred believers if she doesn't fill it out. I am hoping this will be another of those foolish plans of hers that backfires.
Brucker is back !
That's made my day - welcome fella.
Another masterpiece of Wells understated humour, "god isn't consistent on censi, or anything else" lol.
Now I know this is COMPLETELY off topic, but, it's something I'm longing to ask my American online friends.
As I'm NOT American, I often have to google some of the political/celebrity figures you mention and in doing so I learn a lot of stuff - both interesting and banal.
One thing, which I find EVEN harder to understand than the fundies that infest your country, (I guess long ago they left here) is....
WTF are Americans up in arms about a healthcare plan !! !! ?? !!
I was literally astonished to discover that the richest, most technologically advanced nation on earth DOESN'T have this.
FFS sake we've had it for like 62 years ! They have one in Portugal for crying out loud. Isn't free universal healthcare THE POINT of being a rich modern country ?
Like I say, WAY off topic, but similar in that I just don't get how crazily foreign and different you really are in the US.
As far as I can tell, it seems that the objection is you don't want to pay for it - Can that REALLY be it?
Does this split down fundie lines ?
Or do the atheists disagree with it too ? Brucker - your beliefs are always interesting ?
Anyone else ?
Sorry for taking up time on your blog with this, Steve - but...WTF?!
The healthcare debate seems to split along party lines, which does tend to mean religious lines, since most of my fellow fundies are Republicans. As a liberal myself, I'm all for public healthcare. I think it's ridiculous to call it socialism (but even if it is I don't care), which is what the opposition is claiming.
I understand that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without national heath care, and it's embarrassing.
I'm not American, but from what I know, most seem to object being forced to pay for other peoples healthcare, even though they currently spend more on helthcare than countries with universal healthcare. I believe their government also spends a higher percentage of their budget on healthcare than countries like the UK (where I am). They also seem to think that free market is everything, and don't seem to get that companies will exploit the hell out of everything they can. They think that competition will drive prices down and quality up, even though as I say, healthcare is more expensive for them, but it is also lower quality.
Finally, some of them just plain out don't want it, because they've been taught government intervention in anything domestic is evil.
And it's not just rich developed countries. Take a look at this. Green and blue are universal healthcare:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/Universal_Health_Care_World_Map.svg
As for the census thing, it always makes me wtf. I can only assume that God and Satan are the same person and that it's just another mindf**k from god for the human race. Same as when he tells you to take a census. Should you do it? Should you not? Which is right?
Well, turns out neither of them are. I believe it's well documented in the bible what happens when you disobey god, but it also seems that sometimes he'll do it even if you obey him. Just to keep you on your toes. He loves that much that he's willing to slaughter tens of thousands to show us he cares when we count people. It sometimes makes me weep with joy.
If Glenn Beck supports it, it's stupid. Enough said.
Brucker!
Where have you been?
We've missed you so!
Believe it or not, I've been working on my Master's degree. I'm hoping to become a high school math teacher.
Having finally taken the time to actually watch the video, I have to ask, am I the only one that sees the obvious hypocrisy Bachmann is displaying here in railing against illegal aliens while implying that she's afraid that the census will be used as some sort of witch hunt?
Thanks for your healthcare replies. Thinking about it now, I'm sure Steve did a blog on it once.
I also got the irony - from the little I know of this Bachmann woman I strongly suspect she would NOT have been standing up for the rights of interned Japanese-Americans during WW2 !
Interesting observation. It's one of those "hindsight is 20/20" things I guess that people like her could talk about how terrible Japanese internment camps were, but I bet she wouldn't bat an eye if the current government suggested Arab internment camps. (I suppose also there might be an argument that Guantanamo is pretty much already that.)
Maybe God killed a bunch of people so David would have to do the census all over again. That's considered a great joke in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Michele Bachmann is an imbecile... as is Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, etc.
Sorry this has devolved into a health care discussion, Steve, but the absurdity of the whole thing just pisses me off.
Ok Steve.
If Satan told David to conduct the census and 700,000 people got killed because of it, shouldn't you at least be giving him an assist in the God VS Satan death toll?
so now he's up to 700,010.
Arguably assists though.
..and I think it's a fair point to make that God was all for censuses previously, but he was in a really shitty mood on that particular day.
That's a good point, RobJP. I guess Satan was involved, depending on which story you believe, that is. In 1 Chronicles 21, Satan inspired the census, but in the 2 Samuel 24, it was God. I suppose it could have been both working together like they did in Job. But even if so, it was God that did the killing (along with some non-Satanic angels). So I think God deserves the credit (with, as you say, a possible assist to Satan).
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