Churchhoney

My family did this, too. And, yes, it does warp your brain. Unavoidably, because they're busy wiring your brain to survive and prosper in their world, and that inevitably involves having some of their thoughts very deep among your thoughts. But from what I've seen of my own family -- who are every bit the brainwashers that the Duggars are -- and some other families I know, it's still pretty unusual to go through eight kids and not produce one who's noticeably uttered anything in opposition to them. Even the one noticeable behavioral outlier -- Josh -- nevertheless not only clings to their skirts but continues to spout all their crap. I know for a fact that not everybody is so easy to brainwash. You can't avoid being seriously seriously warped by it -- but it clearly is possible for them to fail at shutting down, for some people at least, the parts of you that question what's going on, object to what's going on, and run away. Now, some people who believe the stuff the Duggars do may well not be as talented at or, mostly, as committed to brainwashing as the Duggars. The Kellers may fall into this category. The Duggs brainwash, I believe, for the same reason most brainwashers do -- because they're sick, power-mad, ethics-free control freaks, not because they embrace some particular ideology or theology. Nevertheless, even in families every bit as sick and evil and fully committed to brainwashing as the Duggars -- and I guarantee that mine was, as are a couple of others I know of -- somebody here and there sees the light, often at a pretty early age, and runs when the chance arises -- at least by late teens, mid-twenties. That's why I think it has to be something in the nature of these particular kids that makes them so placid. Brainwashing babies always utterly warps and cripples them, I expect. Messes up the impulses and the deep unconscious feelings and so on. But it doesn't make every single one go along with the brainwashing on a conscious level. And if the Duggars have yet produced somebody who isn't swallowing their crap whole, we don't seem to have any evidence of it.

I know. It may also be -- specifically -- the brainwashing of the stupid or the weak or the fearful, though. I experienced very very heavy attempts at brainwashing myself, and they worked for others, but not for me -- not enough to keep me on the ranch spouting uncritical praise, at least -- and I've seen this happen in other families, too. So it still makes me wonder what's wrong with the Duggar kids that nobody so far seems to show any signs of rejecting the brainwashing. Something has to account for having no noticeable dissenting voices in the top eight, who are all of an age to leave or make noises opposing the regime if they wanted to. I honestly think that you can only account for this by concluding that most of the Duggar kids are naturally weak-willed, fear-driven and dumb as stumps. I hate to conclude that about a bunch of young people. But to the degree that they are weak, fearful and dull, they may actually be happy living eternally in the world that JB and M have envisioned for them, because it's definitely a world made for the incurious and the fearful. Not a world that should be held up as an ideal in the media, though.

I'd place a heavy bet on the show's completely ignoring the Gothard angle, though. I think that's too deep in the weeds for Law and Order. For one thing, it'd force them to squeeze two villains into one 42-minute show and show the connection of the two. That's a pretty daunting task for a show that seems just intended for pure, fall-asleep-in-front-of-the-tv entertainment, I think. I expect them to call up the typical fundie bogeymen while upping the stakes by having a pregnancy -- which of course all by itself amounts to seriously falsifying the main event. I haven't watched many SVUs or Law and Orders generally, but the ones I have seen haven't in the least dissected or fully played out any of the "issues" they rip from the headlines. Seemed to me they just dogwhistle to something we're all familiar with, to bring in viewers, and then on that familiar pretty generic story they "base" an even more generic story. I highly doubt that we'll see any characters on the screen that are actually very much like Jim Bob or Josh, let alone Gothard. There probably will be a squeaky-voiced uber-mom in uber-denial for Michelle. But they're really just using the Duggars for their own ratings. That's fine. Kind of makes me laugh that somebody else will get ratings because of the Duggar name. Serves Jim Bob right that this is what it will be. But I think we're in for a letdown if we expect on-the-money satire, incisive commentary, dramatic nuance or insight, even to a small degree. I'd like them to surprise me. But I don't see it happening.

Well, notice that I said they "call themselves" media!

I think the idea that enemies could or would drive them down is just their arrogant paranoid fantasy. It's a free country with a lot of media and private outlets that can exhibit the Duggars, and nobody can do anything about that. I do think they're losing people now. But I'll bet they won't disappear entirely until they eventually become boring, as everything inevitably does in the end, to the diehards. They've definitely got diehard fans still who aren't phased by anything that happens and will continue to love them. And the Duggs will generate media hits from both those diehards and the many who dislike them (and whose numbers may actually be rising.) But some new shiny object will eventually attract even the diehards, I expect. And that'll spell the real end.

Not to mention that the piece asserts a ton of stuff that really can't be proven and doesn't even bother to make precise arguments to support it -- Does the writer really know that no fans posted photos? It's one thing to say "none of the major fan sites including BLAH and BLAH" have posted photos. But when you make a huge huge statement that you can't possibly prove (after confusing the not-very-similar names of two cities), you don't have much credibility. Ditto for the stuff about how the new decline in popularity (which she doesn't really prove exists) is due to the current controversies. She doesn't make any actual argument for that either, just asserts it..... I don't see what this is except an angry rehash of Josh-related events, so if somebody wants a refresher on those, it's helpful. Besides the timeline, it's just assertion of a couple of overstated conclusions -- that their popularity has now taken a sudden big drop and it's because of the recent controversies such as the Jill stuff -- with little to no corroborating evidence or argument. .... That's what we do here. Which is fine. I think individuals are free to speculate as they want. But don't do it and call yourself official media to any degree at all.

This.

Well, it's just back to one of the key Duggar characteristics: There is only one answer for everything. In this case, the one answer for making a marriage happy -- applicable to all cases -- is for the woman to be available for sex at all times. .... Same thing as their approach to everything else. They say people can make their own "courting" rules -- but, really, there's only one rule -- Don't kiss till the wedding. There's only one pattern for being a good Christian family -- Have a million kids and don't let them out of the house. And so on. They're rigid and stupid and incredibly stubborn in a world with a googolplex of facets that should make it obvious that bone-simple rules are completely inadequate. But they're so arrogant and ignorant that they insist on shouting their stupid rules into everybody's face over and over again without ever listening to additional facts or learning anything. Most people do seem to gain at least a little wisdom with age. But JB and M seem completely hopeless in that regard. I don't know how Anna or the other kids keep from slugging them in the face at times when they persist in arrogantly spouting their same old lines, even when those "ideas" have been repeatedly proven to fail. And yet you see pretty much no visible rebellion or questioning. Evidence doesn't seem to have any effect on Duggarling (or Duggarling-in-law) brains. I don't get it. But maybe one day some of the kids will wake up. Hope either Anna or Josh does before they try the same failed thing again with the same inevitable results.

Aaaa, they're just trying to keep up with Jessa and Ben, whose money is coming from .... uh ... Where is their money coming from again? These people truly baffle me. All of them. ... Or course, I guess the rest of us tend to think of kids' college funds and money to take care of ourselves in old age. Whereas I guess they don't plan to send their kids to college and will also expect those same kids to stay home and care for them into the grave. So spend spend spend! We also think of all the work we did for our money. ... Not sure what the Duggars think of, since they've just hung around in front of cameras for theirs. I can't help but think that someday they'll have to consider money and its sources and purposes more seriously.

Well, at least they didn't ruin two couples.

This is a repost from months ago, though. So I don't think she's paying that much attention at this point. It'd be actual work to go through and change words.

I keep wondering whether Jessa's really as grumpy as her quotes make her seem and whether their two unemployed currently-not-paying-rent asses are really as heedless of money as their eating and drinking out make them seem. Because if either is true .... yeeps.

Poor little guy has looked like Jim Bob since birth, I think. ..But, I suppose, as long as he doesn't grow up to act like Jim Bob, that'll be bearable. Don't grow up to act like Jim Bob, Izzy. Maybe. But can you really tell that for sure before marriage? Especially when your courting/dating time is pretty short and you aren't living with the person (or anything close to it). I think the jury's out on whether Jill's level of clinginess was something Derick sought or not. They really had little in-depth knowledge of each other. With gofundme I think it depends partly on how you intend to use the money. And since they intended to use it for missionaries' salaries, and they're the missionaries, I think it might well be deemed taxable. .... I've heard that gofundme is a tax gray area about which people shouldn't get too comfortable. And on the fact that nonprofit funds can't be used for the "inurement" of people. Well, that really doesn't apply to their nonprofit. "Inurement" means siphoning the money away from the nonprofit and its functions. And since their nonprofit simply consists of two missionaries -- whose salaries are a legitimate expense, and in fact nearly the only legitimate expense of the nonprofit -- putting the money toward the missionary salaries would not be "inurement." Now, an argument could be made that they're paying themselves salaries that are too big and generous and that they're not working enough at the nonprofit to merit salaries of that size. But that's much more of a judgment call and bunch of detailed parsing that IRS is not that likely to get into.

Oh, them especially!

Yeah, I know. What the heck's going to be in these "specials"? .... Come to think of it, though, I'd say this question was raised long before people got mad at them. Everybody, including TLC, must have known that, even after they left for their "mission," the Dills would be out of C.A. and back in the states for a bunch of stuff -- including the other TLC special, various weddings, maybe Jill's completion of her midwife certificate, Jessa's birthing. ... Even without these flaps, all of that wasn't going to leave much time for them to be actually living a brand new life, on camera or not. Makes me think that there was never much intention to put too much content into the specials beyond the stuff that they'd already filmed and that we saw a bit of when they were teasing the now-nonexistent "next season." Seems to me as if the specials were always intended to be just a trial balloon to use up footage they already had and to see how people would like a Duggar show that stayed mostly away from Jim Boob and Michelle and focused mainly on those thrilling married daughters. (I may just think this because it's what I was predicting they'd do months ago ... still...) I don't know that TLC ever intended to put a whole lot of resources into beefing up the specials beyond adding a bunch of Seewald-baby stuff. After all, they'd clearly begun serious filming for a whole new season before the whole mess broke open. So I'm sure they had a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, I expect that he -- along with Bin and Anna -- was chosen for Jill in large part because Jim Boob accurately concluded that he wasn't a person for whom growing a pair would be easy. .... People of Jim Boob's ilk, even when they appear to be complete idiots, have uncanny abilities to zero right in on everybody's weaknesses that they can turn to their own purposes.

That's it, all right. I don't think wanting to watch the Duggs develop says anything about you other than that you want to try to understand situations like this! I must say that I actually wonder how many of the older Duggars will ever even notice what was going on here. In my family, there are people who never noticed anything until I've told them and every time I go away they promptly forget -- i.e., deny. .... Change and analysis are a lot harder for some people than for others, I guess. I get a vibe from the older Duggar girls, especially, that reminds me of these people. I can see some pretty stunted, blind lives being led by these guys. But, if you're truly not consciously bothered by something, I suppose it could be perfectly okay if you never try to fight it. That looks sad from the outside, but I wonder whether people of some natures won't just be more comfortable in life accepting things rather than separating or trying to fight it .... At the very least, DHs won't be saying -- "Why does this bother you so much now, after all this time?" ... They may find their beloveds a little nuts in other ways, though.

Well, Jill didn't even seem very thrilled about having Derick drive over to Walmart for eight hours a day to work back when they were full-time in Arkansas. So doesn't it seem somewhat unlikely that now, a mere few months later and when she has an actual child to take care of, that she'd offer him the opportunity to go to a different country for 24 hours a day? That's really not the Duggar way. And Jill seems to like the Duggar way.

Well, I expect they signed a strong contract agreeing never to say anything that would reveal the real timeline if it contradicted the timeline of the TLC show. It would certainly be in J and D's best interests to clarify, but TLC may not see it that way. They may see allowing a violation of such a contract as a precedent that they absolutely do not want to set. Why would they care if they hang Jill and Derick out to dry? It's just more controversy for TLC and controversy usually drives ratings up, at least a bit. They might even hope that if Jill and Derick are seen as being shady they'll become more interesting to people. That could be a miscalculation, but maybe not, too. Without the current controversy, would their specials be getting so much media attention?

Yeah, I'll bet you're quite right about that. For all they talk about "asking the tough questions" I doubt they want any tough questions asked of them. They'll do the asking, thank you. And when you've finished answering, we'll move this train right along. ... And most young men deprived of any physical contact will be thrilled to have the wedding soon. And so will the girls in their circles, both for the physical contact and because the only worth they get is after they're actually married.

What if they're staying for teevee reasons? Seems that it would be unprecedented for anybody in this family or any other "reality tv" cast to announce something like that? I don't remember it ever happening. It's like on Project Runway, when they always say "in the last week we've been very x, y, z" when you know it's really only been for the last two days. So I'm assuming the reality-tv people sign contracts that forbid them from saying anything that would dirty the timeline story that their tv show has chosen to depict? And if they do -- I can imagine that it might sometimes be really hard to figure out what statement to make to both account for what you're doing but not give away the fact that you're doing it to make a tv-show timeline look accurate .... (particularly if, like these two, you're not too clever ... ) Just a thought. ... (Certainly no Duggar has ever had to come up with such a cover-story-for-teevee-timing story before, have they? But now that they're under fire.... I can imagine J and D being pretty shocked and stymied by this new reality of being on reality tv. Here's hoping it scares them into never wanting to be on it again. Although I guess Jim Bob would have something to say about that.)

Lame. "Hey, the Dillards get hits! Let's keep constructing and publishing new speculations by hooking together a few not-necessarily-relevant facts and other speculations!" Nothing wrong with speculation for amusement or as a way to think things through, but not when you pretend you're journalism.

This is what sick, power-mad, control-freak families do. As someone who grew up in such a family, though, to me there's something creepier. In real life, when you tell other people about the control-freaky things that happened in your home, almost noone believes you. What happens in this kind of family is so out of the ordinary and unnatural that most people don;'t even believe it exists. I expect that even now the three people who have married into the Duggars don't realize how sick it is, for just this reason. Even Anna, who comes from a similar family, obviously comes from a family that exerts quite a bit less control or else she wouldn't have so many siblings who've simply walked away, so I expect that even she doesn't know the extent of the crazy mind control and what drives it in this horrible household. I suppose this explains how the Duggars could evade audience suspicion for so long. They hide their evil warpedness behind religion, and because their evil warpedness is so out of the ordinary, most people don't recognize it when it's right in front of their eyes but accept the "it's religious faith" excuse. So not only are they warped, but they're so warped that they can stand around in plain sight and not be recognized for what they are. EMLTA: On Duggar kids -- the worst thing is that, when these things have been done to someone constantly from birth onwards, then those things are that person's normal . "Normal" to most people seems just as extraordinary to me -- and, I'll bet, the Duggarlings -- as the Duggars' doings seem to most other people. ... It's really really hard to root out a vision of "normal" and "not normal" that's been wiring your brain from birth.

Huh. Interesting. Thanks. ....

Am I forgetting something? I thought that it was demonstrated at some point that they don't ask for SSNs. That the mention of SSNs just part of the boilerplate legal privacy language that's on the site but not part of their donation process. I'm almost certain that somebody somewhere went through the donation process and discovered this.....

I agree. I'm sure there's something in there. They're not dead, after all. I also have hope but, as you say, if it happens it's going to be a long time. They've already all proven to be more the sort that swallows their parents' lines rather than the sort that pushes back, maybe expressing themselves by doubling down on the parental ideas rather than coming up with their own (Jessa comes to mind), and the kind that stays very near the nest and takes parental help rather than insisting on standing on their own or going somewhere else. So the pushing-back side and the individual ideas and interests are going to have to overcome their general natures as well as the programming. I think the nature of their future experiences may drive what happens from here. I do hope they get to spend some time in their lives being their own people to at least some degree. I'm sure that's not guaranteed, though.