Churchhoney

Some random fundie chick stuck in front of the lens so people would start speculating about a new courtship?

Yeah, that's the thing. The smiles are such put-on smiles. They didn't just happen. Faces are clearly deliberately stretched into them. And then when they raise the eyebrows yet... But of course they're pose-y, I guess, since none of those smiles just happen. Self-taken or taken by others, all of their photos are intended to be tv promotional ads.

Maybe they can adopt the kids that Jizm Bob is supposedly spawning with some local young unmarried woman whose parents supposedly approve of the "relationship," per one of the increasingly insane "blind items" that keep showing up.

Well, there's always Jana.

About this long.

I wonder whether that isn't just some people's natural response to having cameras, including tv cameras, always in their faces. It strikes me as being kind of an uncomfortable "here I am performing!" kind of gesture. As in, I'm a performing monkey and of course you wouldn't want to see me looking natural or relaxed! kind of. I mean, these kids have been "on" and "on" and "on" constantly since they were little. Wouldn't surprise me if some just always put on the same "happy face" mask as kind of a discomfort tic.

Also, Michelle seems to have hated Jana since before she was born, what with the stories of Jana being the devil child who kicked her in the womb. (and how you could be absolutely sure of that with twins I don't know...) So I wonder whether the other girls haven't just picked up on that vibe coming from their mother. Not unusual for kids to choose the same scapegoat that parents do, I think. They just go with the family vibe.

Uh..... isn't that approximately the most generic ring on the planet? One medium-sized diamond stuck up on a platinum prong? What does it say when somebody (and crew) is magically struck by that being the perfect ring for you? That if you were wearing a mask they couldn't pick you out of a crowd of a billion other women and might not even bother to? Oh, wait ....

Hey, who needs Spanish when your only job is escorting ugly-American Bibleheads around the compound and leading their interpretive-dance recitals?

"July 18, 2016 "This former A list reality star/serial cheater/part-time child molester is hooking up with someone a family member introduced him to who can be discreet. His wife puts up with it but I really don’t know why. She should walk. "Josh Duggar" As usual with the blind items, this doesn't ring very true to me. In the first place, I'm not sure I'd characterize what he managed to do before as "hooking up." Seems as if, at best, he found a hookup-for-pay that he engaged in pretty disastrously a time or two and then couldn't even 'hook up" on that paying basis any longer. In the second place, while I guess I can see some idiot like whatshername "hooking up" (for PAY) with Joshley back when he was both gainfully employed in politics and a tv star, I have a hard time seeing who'd do that now. He's nobody. He's a pariah. He has no bucks and no future. IAnd I have a hard time believing that JB would pay for his dalliance.) He doesn't seem to be deemed tv-able by the network, at this point anyway. He's become quite the porker. And he's probably depressed as hell and even worse company than before. So who's the idiot who would volunteer to do him -- discreetly -- repeatedly? What the hell would be in it for this woman? I don't think I believe this particular tale any more than I believe that some Fayetteville couple is letting JB bang and impregnate their nubile daughter while looking forward to supporting the offspring of the union. Joshley may be hitting some sad low-cost northwest Arkansas prostitute, but this family-acquaintance-who's-doing-him-voluntarily-for-free thing seems pretty damn unlikely to me.

Who new miniature generic-ingredient rootbeer floats were so pricey? Although the bolts of cloth to construct all those modesty adornments for the 45 attendants probably ran up the totals a bit.

By skimming off supposed wedding cash to pay for European honeymoons, airplane fuel and restocking the TTH?

Well, I don't know that motion sickness really comes into it on the huge it's-all-about-seeing-the-view wheels. Like the London Eye and so on, that National Harbor wheel moves pretty slowly and you're almost in a room. Not too different from a revolving restaurant or something. Not any kind of fast thrill ride.

I guess whatever the old man's charismatic magic was that got that first generation to buy in just isn't powerful enough to blind people to the stupidity any more. Silver lining. He sure had something in the early days that made a lot of people overlook all the nonsense you mention, though. Can't imagine what it was.

Me, too. I get the feeling that Gothard must be someone who has a fairly good brain in the I-can-make-up-tricky-little-"logical"-lawyer-arguments kind of way, absolutely no empathy and a huge ego. Which I guess would make him a good candidate for the "successful sociopathic criminal" category? But he's just one individual, and obviously individuals come in all flavors. What baffles me more is the clearly numerous adults who have bought into, aided and abetted this stuff. And the fact that many many of them, such as the Duggars, were not born and brought up into it and thus brainwashed from birth but joined on their own, of their own free will, and dragged their families into it with them. And the fact that quite a few educated and apparently intelligent people have been long-time Gothard apparatchiks who clearly know exactly what he preached and yet have devoted their lives to -- and made careers of, in some cases -- spreading this horrendous "thinking" around the world. The Paines, for example, a family headed by a medical doctor, spreading Gotharditis around Asia. And plenty of others involved in the U.S. operations, the overseas operations, the sometimes successful attempts to spread it into state government activities such as a juvenile justice. I can see Gothard himself spreading it -- it's his ego that's involved. But what in the hell is wrong with all these other people? And when I think of all the kids they've brainwashed....And they're well and truly brainwashed, too. The Duggar kids have certainly heard every bit of this crap. Heck, many of the older ones have surely even "taught" it to others, in Journey to the Heart and the other youth programs. Yet, apparently, not one has wakened one day nauseated because the horror of it finally came to them in a dream or something.

While the topic is more extreme, as far as I can tell the tone and general direction of the "reasoning" in this monstrosity is all of a piece with the rest of the Gothard's "teachings." I doubt that any adult involved with that group for any length of time can have missed hearing stuff quite similar in general meaning to this. Heck, in spirit it echoes many of the seemingly more benign crap they've also promoted -- like "Your little sister constantly torments you and is a massive mini bitch? You're the one who has to suffer to fix it. Give her your most precious possession." And what I wonder is, who hears clearly warped stuff like this and then stays as a devotee of this horrible cult? Who's so willing to accept such an extremely twisted and cynical view of power relations? And who the hell exposes their children to indoctrination with this kind of "thinking"?

Yeah, as close to pure evil as you'll ever get, seems to me.

So if anybody's still wondering why the poor Duggar kids are so fucked up (along with thousands more kids that we don't know about).... why they don't just move on and get over it ... I give you Exhibit A.

Well said.

Homeschoolers Anonymous has a series about a Gothard IBLP document on why God allows child molestation. Short version, in essence: Victims can use the event as an impetus to shape up, in numerous ways. My conclusion: The damned Bateses should never ever ever ever ever be televised for potential lionization or rationalization by audiences either. This is in regard to the molestation of a four-year-old boy. Note the use of quotation marks around a word in this passage: In our fallen world with all its evil men and women, there will be attacks by a stronger upon a weaker. When this happens, the law of God is very clear that the weaker must cry out for help or he will be equally guilty. This principle is found in Deuteronomy 21:23, 24. When a ‘victim’ does not cry out or immediately tell his authority he will carry around a sense of guilt which Satan will then use for condemnation and further defeat. It would therefore be important for your son to confess his failure to do this and ask God to forgive him. https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2016/08/09/gothard-explains-why-god-allows-child-molestation-part-i/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2016/08/10/worksheet-claims-that-god-allows-sexual-abuse-part-ii/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2016/08/11/worksheet-claims-that-god-allows-sexual-abuse-part-iii/ https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2016/08/12/worksheet-claims-that-god-allows-sexual-abuse-part-iv/

Exactly. And what I find even more disturbing is the fact that, apparently because she said (and did!) crap like this, Michelle became a heroine, a godly icon for some Christians and a frigging role model for, it appears, more than a few women. WTF?

Plus, Gothardism loudly and actively preaches against allowing children or young people to have any friends (as do some other similar belief groups, like the family-integrated church crowd, to some degree). Allowing any real contact between offspring and their peers dilutes the power of the parents, although of course they pretend that it's for the sake of shielding the kids from bad young influences that will pull them away from Jesus. The giveaway, though, is that they define all kid friendships as detracting from Jesusness. The whole "oh, yeah, the Bates kids are our kids' friends" is a smokescreen to hide the truth, from the outside world but,mostly, from the kids themselves. But the preaching against friends is repeated everywhere. As are the shallow lies to fool the kids into thinking they do have friends. And yet again I note that these so-called "religious" practices and ideas are really just the practices and ideas of pathologically power-mad nutso parents toward their kids. My family isolated me to the absolute limit of their ability yet fought tooth and nail against my assertions that I'd had no friends and continued those arguments long after I'd left the house. Just exactly like Gothardites, they isolated kids for the sake of giving parents more power and just like GOthardites they glibly lied about it. The only difference was -- no Jesus. So that tells me that Jesus has nothing to do with it in either case. Poor dumb deluded Duggar kids. They're ruined for life when it comes to socialization, really. I picked up on the truth quite early and left the fold pretty early, too. But my brain has kept a lot of the social warping it got for a lifetime.

Well, as a lady I knew always used to say, "At least they didn't spoil two couples." ...... Just 19 kids. And four kid-in-laws. And six "grandbabies." And counting.

Well, when you have -- what, 30-plus people? -- and no actual employment, I guess that kind of thing is pretty inevitable.

I expect they're a thing if you consider "pile of random crap" a thing. (I actually do consider "pile of random crap" not only a thing but often a desirable thing. But I reserve the piles for my own amusement.)