Churchhoney

Yep. That's the main reason why I hate them having the show. It's a lot harder for people to bite a hand that feeds them well, or even ask questions about that hand. Plus, of course, having the show allows JB and M to argue convincingly that the world accepts them as great role models, that having the show is God's way of telling them that he wants their mission to spread, and that it's the kids' duty to help this along. Their trap is multifaceted, but the show is definitely part of it.

Points taken! We only see what they allow us to see, though, and I think it's possible that some sprouts of dissension do appear on the blind dumb lawn of crap adherence from time to time. And then what we see is a quick trip to Alert, baby Alert, Journey to the Heartbroken, ATI Mother-Daughter FUN Weekend, FAMILY camp!, etc.. And the sprouts get pruned. They have quite the brainwashing apparatus going on. I can't help but feel bad for them. Not least because of how dumb they seem, actually. lol

Seems logical, but my experience screams to me that it's really not. Yeah, they've been on trips. But they've only met people when they were surrounded by their mob of a family, indoctrinating them constantly and preventing any close contact. And Internet comments come from voices that even the rest of us often can't really envision as fully human, as far as I can tell. I actually went to public school from age five and got summer jobs beginning at 13. So I had tons and tons and tons more experience of other people -- and on my own, without any family members around -- than any Duggar has ever had. (Plus -- I have to say it -- quite a few more IQ points than any Duggar I've seen and a naturally independent nature.). Yet even though I fled to another state at 18 I stayed largely trapped in my family-learned patterns of behavior -- and even, to some degree, thinking -- for years thereafter. (and still stay trapped in many behaviors and even thought patterns to this day) I'm sure that there are brainwashed-by-family people who do actually change significantly and at a fairly young age. But in my experience -- reinforced by that of a couple close friends who have similar stories -- it's unbelievably hard to do and may only be doable if you're really really lucky, plus smart and highly independent by nature (which most people aren't, and which the Duggar kids don't seem to be at all). I still think they deserve a pass, even though I'd love to see them repudiate this shit. I feel doubly lucky because, while I remained stuck in my family's horseshit, it was purely personal warping. I didn't get saddled with a habit of condemning other people's morals and religion and trying to impose my personal rules-for-living on the larger society and arrogantly mouthing off about that on television. It's another misfortune of the Duggar kids that they haven't just been personally screwed up by their parents but they've been gifted with their parents' ugly arrogant attitudes towards other people and their belief that imposing their will on others is a good thing to do. If they were just fucked up themselves, their brainwashing would be a personal misfortune, but we wouldn't feel nearly so inclined to condemn them for it. I feel like condemning them, too, but I can't because I know how hard it is to escape, for many of us.

The good news is that there must be a profound struggle going on in sinner twin's soul right now. All his conditioning -- and there's been a hell of a lot of conditioning and it's ongoing -- tells him he's wrong while his mind keeps whispering, "You're right. You're right!" .... Hope his mind is strong enough to win the battle eventually. It'll be tough, though. The most horrifying thing to me about the Gothard cult is that the bastard was wily enough to create multiple systems to support power-crazed men in their quest to keep their wives and offspring under total control. And fucking Jizm Bob takes full advantage, of course.

Yeah, they're doing Craigslist. The crazy Plymouth is listed at $159 thou, marked down from $175. ... I wonder if I'd buy a car that expensive out of somebody's front yard.

I'm not so sure the double life thing is evidence of being damaged. If I lived in Duggardom and was too much of a coward to leave it, I expect I'd be living some kind of double life, too. When who you are completely clashes with all the norms and rules of your living situation, you either get out regardless of the cost, completely suppress your own personality to conform, or live in some kind of duplicity. I think Josh is someone who's involved in such a dilemma. And I expect that the third way of "coping" -- his way -- is at least as common as the other two.

Not to mention Hal Linden. Merrill Stubing meets Barney Miller. That could be a series. The world of courtship sets a very low bar on expectations for date nights.

Over on the Seewald forum, Gee Golly wrote this, to which I'm responding below: Gee Golly: "From Lily's & Ellie's blog: "Q: Are the Duggars part of the QuiverFull movement? A: The Duggars write in their second book, A Love That Multiplies: "Even though Wikipedia and some Internet blogs report that we are part of a QuiverFull movement, we are not. We are simply Bible-believing Christians who desire to follow God's Word and apply it to our lives" "From the Bible: "Psalm 127:3-5 "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. "From GeeGolly :) "To me being part of a movement is not only doing said belief, but also promoting it. "While the Duggars say they are not part of a movement, they not only follow the belief, they actually promote it. They have said at least a zillion times, "as many children as God sees fit", "every child is a blessing", "we'll see what the lord has in store for us" regarding children. And lets not forget "19 children, and I delivered everyone of them"." Churchhoney: Also, the actual quote from "their" book states that they're not "part of a Quiverfull movement," with the "a" there essentially implying that there is no Quiverfull "movement" and that the notion that such a "movement" exists is a fig newton of liberals' and ungodlies' fevered imaginations. And that's just exactly what whichever Gothardites actually wrote the book would say. They and some of the other cultists who are totally part of the drive to build Jesus's very large army are at the same time quite anxious not to let the general population know that that's going on and that they're party to it. Unlike some of the Quiverfull folks, Gothard's gang and some others want it all to be stealth and don't want to alarm the masses with the idea that such a movement is building, largely, I expect, because Gothardism actually is a movement -- or at least has been one -- with real ambitions to wield significant influence in the world. Note that the same quote also suggests that the Duggs aren't actually part of any group or movement at all -- including Gothardism -- but "simply Bible-believing Christians who desire to follow God's Word and apply it to our lives." Horse hockey. They have long been part of a cult and their crazy-ass views and behavior come right out of that power-hungry cult and not out of their own personal encounters with the Bible in any way shape or form. The Gothardites wrote JB and M's books, just as they wrote the girls' books, and they wrote them with the plan in mind of spreading their views but not letting people catch on to the potentially scary thought that those views are part of a "movement" that in fact is political and has had a very real intention of seizing as much power in this country and in the world as possible. Gothard's many infiltrations of various government functions over the years and his ongoing programs in numerous countries -- many of which are disguised as nearly secular enterprises -- make that perfectly clear. So ... when it comes to stuff like this, no way can the Duggars' word be trusted, especially when it's found in any of the families' books, which were written wholly by Gothard staff and hired writers, not by them.

Gonna respond to this over in the "Duggar stuff, schooling, etc." forum, or whatever it's called, because I'm going to go way off topic here.

Plus, 3) She's back on TeeVee.

I wonder which god she thinks would not allow them to share their testimonies about his greatness. I guess that would be the great big dummy god who totally acts against his own self interest. These people just don't think at all. And what the hell are these little kids testifying about? God allowed somebody to drop a wrapped candy in the sandbox and allowed me to see it and pick it up -- Praise the lord! And to what part of god's greatness can JD offer testimony? God is soooo great cuz he's allowed me to be eternally stuck as one of Jizm Bob's multiple errand boys, with no shot in hell of ever having friends or fun or a paying job or a life and family of my own! I suppose he's decided to think he's blessed cause he gets to fly Jizm's plane to wherever Jizm wants to go. But yeesh.

I didn't say the song was ambitious. I said Marjorie was ambitious! That's the kind of song that could sell really well among a certain pretty large group of Christians, I expect, particularly when sung by a couple of young women singing with a southern-country twang. Just like Marjorie's lettered quotations are exactly the kind of thing that goes over well with a mass audience of a certain Christian ilk -- the kind of thing that makes them feel good about their beliefs and about themselves. And she's, what, 18, and putting out stuff in various media that she's clearly savvy enough to think probably will please a pretty large -- one might even say mass-market -- Christian audience of that sort. She's got some talents, she's clearly practiced this stuff hard, and she's putting it out there to gain an audience and to sell. I think she's ambitious as hell. She's not expressing herself through art as a personal thing. That might make an ambitious SONG, but it wouldn't necessarily make her ambitious. She's manufacturing product calculated to make sales, and it looks as if she's doing that pretty much on her own, not as a tool or pawn of some parent or producer or publisher or whatever. She's a damn entrepreneur and she's going after it hard. As a teenager from a cult that generally oppresses and discourages women from stepping to the forefront at all. I call that ambitious and gutsy as all get out, really.

It's Marjorie and her younger sister. And I agree that it's quite nice. She's not only talented but significantly multitalented. I actually admire her ambition, too. And aside from her being tainted by Duggar contact, I don't even know for sure that she's heavily into the "I'm-just-glorifying-the-Lord-and-it's-all-Jesus-and-not-me" stuff. Can't say I've heard her say that, and she includes a lot of semi-secular quotes in her lettering and stuff, so she seems less inclined to parrot that constantly than other Duggar acquaintances. But to me she often pushes too hard to the point that it's awkward and offputting, and her 19 Kids participation smacked of trying to use Duggar leverage to get into show biz. Hopefully, her intelligence and the experiences she's gathering will help her grow out of that stuff as she leaves the teen years, though.

And look! It's got an arrow pointing each way. One for Bin and one for Blessa!

Marjorie's throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, looks like. She and younger sis Genevieve have done a little youtube singing recently, too. It's just a cover and it's just youtube, but they've got a group name and Marjorie's involved, so iTunes probably isn't far behind.

What I wonder is why some of these things are true. For example, the not wanting more children thing. Seems clear that, in some ways, he really doesn't want more children, that he sees that the demands on attention and money and so on are too high for comfort. He watched his family have all those kids and he surely saw the difficulties. And it seems that, in some ways anyway, he was fond of his own kids and may not have wanted to have so many more that he couldn't pay attention to any of them. But then, as you say, he doesn't seem able to say that to Anna straight out. So why the hell not? Is he so stupid and brainwashed that he actually believes the Gothard crap about a requirement to have gazillions of kids and fears the wrath of God if he doesn't produce them? Does he feel so distant from Anna and so uncomfortable with her that he can't ever tell her a truth she'll have a problem with because he's sure that they couldn't work something out? Is he so scared of losing Jizm Bob's favor and cash that he'll completely suppress what he knows he wants so that he doesn't rock the Duggar boat and lose his livelihood? Or what? To me, it's just nuts for somebody in this era to potentially allow themselves to go on and on having kids into the double digits when they don't really want to. So why is he likely to do it?

Well, I wouldn't put this -- or much of anything -- past Boob. So who knows? But if he did it, I'm thinking he didn't inform Joshley. Just imagine the look on Smugs' face on the day he wakes up having full and sole custody of the four (five....six...seven...) M-children. (Although it might not be as bad as he'd fear. After all, what are Jana and the Lost Girls for?)

Yeah, I'm fascinated with it too. My best guess is that it's mostly individual biologies creating surprises, both good and bad. When Jessa was supposed to be motherly without benefit of mom hormones, she clearly didn't have it in her mind and heart to do it, but in the instance where she's got the hormones working for her, they've kicked in big time for Spurgie's benefit. Jill clearly looked to have a more motherly mind and heart by nature with her siblings, but now it looks like her mom hormones may even be helping to trigger depression or some such, and definitely not boosting her motherliness. Sad for Jill and Izzy, but great for Jessa and Spurge. Chemistry is one of those things that isn't fair, I guess.

Why do I picture them visiting about 200 therapists before they find one who's so hard of hearing that he or she doesn't figure out what their beliefs actually are? Seriously, I'm sure they aren't going to any therapist based in the secular world or in any organization that requires formal education. I'm sure there are plenty of people around who counsel fundie and even "biblical patriarchy" people for a living, and since they do it for a living, they can claim that it's a "profession." We all know God don't require no stinking education or training. Not for electricians and not for therapists. (He and the Duggars seem to make an exception for emergency medicine, though. Wonder why that is? ha)

That's a pretty good description of at least 95 percent of everything Duggars (and now Duggars-in-law) say, seems to me. They'd even agree. Except that they think it's just "voice" and it belongs to G-O-D.

And you wouldn't even need the clothes and the hair and the posing to make the point. The facial expressions do it all by themselves. Modest and natural versus phoney baloney and arrogant as hell. Thanks for the all-telling side-by-side.

Probably not much. If has four syllables.

Yep, they're a really bad game of "Would you rather..." all right! And then when you think that not only do they subject children to their horrors but they subject many many children to them. It's just the way you suggest -- whichever one you're looking at at the moment kinda seems to be the worst. But then you look at another one ...

Well, looking at these "biblical patriarchy" families -- which are really kind of a new thing as an ideology, something that hasn't gone far beyond the first generation of offspring attaining adulthood, for the most part -- it seems to me that, while the males supposedly become the heads of their own households, the fathers who originally joined this movement tend to retain a headship-in-all-but-name over all their kids, including the males, pretty much forever. I guess that's because the first guys to join these cults were mostly egomaniacs. And they may say that the rules make the next-generation males true heads of their own households. But when it comes to really letting them go their own ways, the big-daddy ego of the first guys in seems to prevent it pretty much. In this way, I don't think the Josh situation is much different from most of the others. He was (and is, I expect) allowed to be the boss of Anna and the M kids. But since he's got a major boss of his own, who undoubtedly tells him how to boss Anna and the M kids, his headship never did amount to much compared to Jizm Bob's, I would suppose. He'd always get precedence over Anna as headship, certainly, because women aren't ever ever ever going to be allowed in that position. But in these egomania-spawned familes, the original egomaniac is always going to be HBIC, even after the supposedly headship-worthy young males grow up. Josh probably gets more scrutiny from JB than some of the young guys. But I doubt that JB would ever truly have seen him as a "patriarch" in his own right, even if he'd never committed any verboten sex acts. That's one of the things that'll make "biblical patriarchy" a not-very-long-lived ideology/"theology," I'll bet. How many guys are going to want dad being Mr. Bigshot in the whole family decades after they've grown up and had families of their own? I don't see how it can long be a very attractive way of life to anybody except the first guy in each family who got involved.

I don't know. While I wouldn't want to be a Duggar or a Duggar adjacent in any way, shape or form, I think I'd much rather have Josh and Anna as parents. They're more human and do seem to be conscious of their kids' existence and kind of like and care about them in their own ways (imperfect as those ways may be). For me, much much better to have parents who fuck up in human ways but kinda sorta like kids than people to whom kids exist only for brainwashing purposes and as props in some kind of imaginary drama of parental perfection. Among other things, once the parents -- in this case, Josh -- have visibly screwed up in a way that the whole world can see and acknowledge, that can open the door for the kids to stop idolizing that person and get some room to develop their own thoughts and personalities. Openings to do that are one of the most important things that kids in a confining world like the Duggars' can get, I think. Meanwhile, with JB and M as parents -- and living in the fundie leghumper world where they are unaccountably idolized -- there's so so little opportunity for the Duggarlings to see beyond those two massive mental-space hogs and the prison they've created. Obviously, it's my bias -- but I'd bet that for most people a lifetime of "nearly impossibly trapped" is much unhappier than a lifetime of "yeah, my dad is a giant sleazy cheat and a loser."