It’s not about who is Jewish enough to do anything. It’s about noticing when sets of actions are incongruent with each other and noting it. There is no litmus test to being Jewish and certainly none PRR is suggesting. What he is saying that his host seemed, to PRR, to be using his Judaism as another excuse to slam the President, while seeming to ignore it in other aspects. PRR maybe wrong about it, but at least criticize him for what’s he’s actually asserting.
I’m sure PRR would have no issue with a nominally observant Jew doing an attempt at a Seder if the person wasn’t also arguing his deeply held Judaism gives him even more credibility and right to slam the President.
Two men enter, one man leaves!
Seriously, this is a dumb ass highjack. PRR is the pseudotriton ruber ruber, you are apparently a cookie, and the thread is about someone who has to hang with a friend who’s drifted away into dittohead land. PRR did well in a tough situation and told a story.
The point is that the op felt his friend should not hold certain beliefs about another person (in this case obama, but fill in the blank with anyone else) based on how the op perceived his friend to practice his religion. He formed certain judgments about his friend that he was not Jewish enough to be able to have those opinions on obama. He felt that for example, his marriage to a Catholic, implies he is not a strong enough Jew, or Jewish enough to speak on those issues with obama
If he had said the prayer perfectly, or married a jew rather than a gentile, the op would feel he is qualified to speak on obama
If my friend had said the prayer well, gone through the whole Haggadah, brought his kids up Jewish, then I would concede that he had earned the right to speak from the position of being an observant Jew. I would still disagree violently with his stupid mischaracterizations of the President, of course, but I wouldn’t criticize him for wrapping the shawl of Judaism around himself as he said those ignorant remarks.
I had a lot to criticize him for–this was just the cherry on the cake. Any time I think I’m a better Jew than someone else, that’s tantamount to saying he’s a pretty poor specimen of a Jew. He’s the kind of birther who gives birthers a bad name, and the kind of Jew whose actions encourage anti-semitism. He doesn’t know a thing, as far as I can tell, about Torah, about Jewish law, about the history of Judaism, about the Hebrew language, about Jewish philosophy, and I’m supposed to respect his views because he calls himself a Jew? Please.
Nope. You are just repeating your mistaken characterization. It’s about credibility, not religion. Anyway, PRR doesn’t need me white-knighting him, so I’ve had my say and I’ll leave it at that.
Don’t you figure these white supremacy guys are just such losers that the only group that will have them, and the only way they can get anybody’s attention is by becoming a white supremacist? Then you gasp and stare, and they got your attention. Ha-ha!
Jeremy Renner did a movie called Neo Ned about a messed-up punk who gets involved with some white supremacists and then falls in love with a black woman. (Highly recommend the movie.)
I hear ya, though. Like most here, I’m an atheist. I find it funny to pretend to be a Christian. You can really impress people with the knowledge you have about the bible.
It’s just so much easier to get along with people than be right.
I don’t argue politics with anyone. Due to the nature of my job I’ll discuss it with my boss and co-workers but by and large I make a point of keeping my political opinions to myself when they differ from those of the people I’m speaking with IRL.
It is, IMHO, breathtakingly unlikely that someone is going to say “Gosh, you’re absolutely right! Here I was staunchly defending the Silly Party and their policies, but I have seen the light thanks to you and shall vow here and now to henceforth support the Sensible Party.”
As I said, he didn’t mind introducing all sorts of political firebombs and taking extreme positions on them in front of me despite (very probably) understanding that I wouldn’t be agreeing with any of them. It’s a type of cluelessness, I think, the assumption that any reasonable, right-thinking person will naturally agree with his specious and offensive hate-filled nonsense simply because everyone agrees except the secret Muslim brotherhood that controls this country.
There was really no point in arguing–his arguments self-destructed all by themselves. He would assert how super-patriotic he was, and then in the next breath start ranting about how the elected US government should be deposed by any means necessary.