Churchhoney

Good stuff. I think it's always easier to break away from the poor than to break away from the rich. When you're getting free Apple products you have a lot more to lose -- or at least you think you do. That's one reason I've rooted hard for an end to the show. I always thought that would offer by far the best opportunity for more of the kids to open their eyes to the horror and begin making other plans. I kind of laugh (or want to cry or scream, alternatively...) when I think of all these guys devoted to the 200-year plan or something like it -- but all derived in one way or another from Rushdoony's "dominion" ideas, I think, since he wanted to raise an army of followers, ensure those followers were never tainted by the evil school system and even take over public offices, the way JB tried to do. I'm pretty sure Phillips came up with the 200-year-plan in concert with Geoff Botkin, famous for fathering the "visionary" never-leaving-home-at-all-and-now-fast-approaching-sell-by-date daughters Elizabeth and Anna Sofia. And of course Phillips sickly raised up and groomed poor teenage Lourdes from his congregation into a pseudodaughter/sex toy. And then there's Jim Bob's mob of sleepwalkers. And all the guys promote the idea that they have, you know, ideas, and that their so-called philosophies and theologies are, you know, philosophies and theologies. But really, when you look at their lives and personalities, it's crystal clear that they have simply invented -- or latched onto, in Jim Bob's case -- theories that allow them free exercise of their massive neuroses and selfishness and even the belief that God's commanding them to follow these paths. As you say, what narcissist of Jim Bob's ilk wouldn't really really love an eternal compound full of slavish followers to boss around and demand worship from, forever? Woe to the kids who fall into the clutches of anybody who wants earthly dominion or has a 200-year plan. Resistance is futile. They will be assimilated. Dystopian novel plots everywhere you look.

Hope I'm wrong, though.Then things would look a lot better for the kids, even the older ones. They'd finally have some role models worth looking at.

Wow, yeah, that's really apt. Unfortunately, superficial crap is easy to fix, and if you're not doing it -- because it's easy to fix -- then you get to feel perfect and perfectly justified in bashing others. Examining your own hypocrisy? Not so much. You know, we hope and hope for them to take a realistic view of life, truly undertake the things their faith would seem to demand, look closely at themselves, examine something -- anything at all -- seriously. But at this point, I'm pretty sure that they're never ever ever going to do any of that. How many people of JB's and M's age or older have ever had the energy and will to fundamentally change the way they think and the way they live their lives? A pretty small number, I expect. And these two are probably as shallow, egotistical, neurotically needy and dumb as they come -- and have, they think, received decades worth of accolades, money and fame for doing just exactly what they do right now. So no matter what's happening to them at the moment, I expect that inertia's going to keep them doing what they're doing, without giving it a second thought. Plus, if the bad times continue, they can just go on blaming Satan, the evil media, the liberal tide that's taken over American and, if necessary, Josh.

So .... girls have to wear denim while boys impersonate peacocks? Geez.

Could go either way, I think. .... Or maybe she consciously intended to write that shiny MOTY sentiment about how his excellence challenges them to do better, but the part of her that wants to scream "Gaaaaaa, ya smart-ass little bastard" every time she sees Josiah Freudian-slipped her into writing something with a double meaning.

You really hit the nail on the head here. It's really unfortunate that media (and readers/viewer/the public, I think) seem addicted to the simple story line that "so and so brought this down" while assiduously ignoring the messed-up system that so-and-so's behavior offered a view of. At least a couple of times before some hot news item has seemed to open the door to public scrutiny of the Gothard cult, for example, but as soon as the immediate scandal died down, nobody seemed to care at all any more about the nasty system/institution from which it sprang. Guess it's the same thing that happens when there's a shooting or an international incident or market crash or whatever. Even though the event is enmeshed in a large -- and often highly visible -- system or institution of causes and corruptions that's now crying out to be examined and maybe overhauled or even abolished, once immediate interest in the shiny individual shocking story wears off, all scrutiny of the problematic system ceases. And thus it will be this time again, I expect. ... Of course, on the bright side, we have Josh. Maybe he'll just keep jerking open the door and giving us so many peeps inside that real external -- and, dare I hope, internal -- scrutiny of the Duggar/Gothard fuckedupness will come.

She probably showed them off when she hosted the Sunday school class party at her house, too. Clueless. But a devoted Sunday school attender into her 90s.

Unfortunately, the creepy bastard envisions them only in terms of what needed roles they can fill in his life. The question of what roles they might need or want to play in lives of their own doesn't even exist for him. I think Jim Bob started out as a way sick fuck whose sickness over the years has morphed him into an evil one. Those poor kids.

Poifect. Jim Bob would even get to satisfy his wish to be a U.S. Senator -- vicariously, anyway.

'"We live a peaceful, quiet life, but I wouldn't rule it out if people were interested in our family," said Ben when asked if they would raise their family on TV.' And why would anyone be interested in your boring boring family, you silly silly silly vapid twit?

I'm pretty sure Michelle authorizes the telling of that story. I think it's in the book, actually, and I believe it's pretty Gothard-inspired. It's supposed to be all about how the best thing to do is to love your enemies and that when you're the victim of something the best thing you can do for yourself is to forgive the perpetrator of whatever -- make some big gesture of forgiveness and then you will have let go of the whole issue. You know, make the victim responsible for solving the situation. Extends to rape and so on, of course.

That's it, all right. Pretty kids who are born there generally move to NYC, LA, Europe, etc. .... No joke. Power, however, is quite the aphrodisiac. (even brains, sometimes ...)

I don't see another way to interpret that picture. .... Because they're Just. That. Bright.

Here they are: Washington: Not a fashion capital. Pants are worn and knees are not covered, however. Washington women, including FRC women: Are college graduates, or more. Spend a lot of time talking about public policies that Josh Duggar doesn't even know exist. So do cab drivers. Not sure what Joshie would make of that, actually. Dunno where GEML is. But the above is it in a nutshell.

Back in the old old olden days when restaurants served coffee cream in little glass or metal or china pitchers, an elderly relative of mine lifted one of those creamers from every restaurant she ate in. She had them arrayed in a big curio cabinet in her living room. It held nothing but stolen pitchers. Quite the judgmental old bitch, too. But, by damn, she was entitled to remove what she could carry from any restaurant that billed her for a meal apparently.

Well, he's a strange one. But my guess is that one of these two will turn out to be the case. I don't actually believe that anybody, JB and M or "Reformers" Frigging "Unanimous" (for the love all that's holy, what a name), is actually going to be particularly hard on Joshie boy in the long run. Plus, I don't think he has the balls to walk. He might stroll out the door impulsively for a brief while. But, while I don't know this is true, anecdotal evidence among my acquaintance suggests that walkers driven only by impulsiveness tend to float back again pretty quickly. It's one thing to bolt out the door. It's another to cope with having left all security behind, after you've bolted.

I've seen them claim an 80 percent success rate. That's almost as funny as "Needs more cowbell."

Exactly. And, worse, this is the exact same thing they same about every kid. This is why I don't believe for a second that JB and M are truly "heartsick" over what's happened with Josh or parents "who try to do the best they can for their children," etc. etc. These two narcissistic, terminally selfish control freaks don't have the slightest idea who their kids are as individuals; neither do they care. They care only about their disgusting family brand and their reputations, money and TeeVee show. I'm going to have to stop talking and reading about the Duggars, I think, because it's reminding me way too much of how things were and are in my own family. The perpetrators of these crimes against the next generation are not just like you and me, but a little more messed up, as most assume. They're both mentally sick and just plain bad. They're serial killers of children's souls because they have no empathy. Wouldn't surprise me if they're lacking activity in the exact same brain-regions-connected-with-empathy that actual serial killers exhibit, just to a different degree. They ignored the sexual molestation of their own young daughters, whose "innocence" they supposedly are wild to protect. JB spent a quarter of a million dollars on an idiotic, astronomically egotistical, completely-without-merit-or-tinker's-chance run for the Senate when his dozen-plus kids were crammed into two bedrooms that had less walking room or privacy than a railroad sleeper car. Michelle passed off each of her babies to be raised by another child at age six months so she could get busy on producing a new, nameless, faceless infant to be her badge of honor as MOTY. Etc. Etc. Etc..... And yet, despite all this, we persist in viewing them as misguided but ultimately loving parents who, if they only truly understood how they were harming their children, would, down deep, feel bad about harms their children have suffered and try to do the right thing. Great steaming mounds of bullshit. They couldn't care less about those kids. Nor ever did. They're the horrifying picture of extreme narcissism, times two. They don't have the same feelings as ordinary people at all.

Libby Anne. You go, girl.

Indeed. It's definitely time that somebody destroyed them. And it's true poetic justice that the damage is being done by their ever-golden child, the one they've been proudest of, one of two or fewer that Michelle truly seems to care for and that Jim Bob clearly saw as continuing the Jim Bob legacy. Couldn't happen to a more deserving pair.

Yeah, you could be right. That certainly is quite list of things. ..... It may just be overdone Josh-despising on my part, but I don't see him as brave enough even to do it in light of all that stuff! To me, he comes off as a spoiled whiny baby, an all-hat-and-no-cattle pile of backwoods arrogance and a blustering wussy of staggering proportions. ....(Did I mention that I despise him (although not as much as I despise his parents)?) ... In either case, I guess we'll find out soon, looks like. The next year or so should be pretty interesting on the Josh front.

You the answer is "emphatically, yes," right?

It is for me. I wouldn't use "overseas" for Canada or Mexico, obviously. But I don't think it's too far off the mark for any place else.

I think "stay sweet camp" is pretty much the only "helping" or "educational" idea these people have, isn't it?

Well, in that sense, absolutely! (In the sense of -- most violent, malevolent and strongest man ever to attack me, from the point of view of a professional sex worker -- I'm still saying absolutely not, though. Still sure that any sex worker of that woman's ilk will have encountered a few violent, angy woman-haters with back and arm strength that would leave Trapeze Joshie in the dust. Pretty sure they'd be considerably scarier.) Jana and John David may be proof of the genetics crapshoot, though. They seem to actually work during the day.