The Other McCain

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Self-Proclaimed Pagan Rob Taylor Lectures Conservatives on Morality?

Posted on | June 30, 2011 | 42 Comments

In January, I took note of Rob Taylor’s post calling for conservatives to “outreach” to the . . . er, Pagan community:

“As a Pagan I can tell you that I, like many others, strongly support economic freedom, limited government, a strong nationals defense and law and order. Many Pagans are also pro-life, anti-drug and pro-traditional marriage. Should Pagans be turned away because they aren’t Christians?
“The Pagan Right is a vigorous defender of conservative values and classical liberalism in an arena that few other conservatives have access to. It is time the movements were linked together so that both are strengthened.”

Taylor’s argument was highly unusual, advocating a policy unlikely to yield much in the way of electoral addition, as it seems to me Democrats have a pretty solid hold on the idolators of Moloch and Ashtoreth who, as Lisa Graas noted, are not particularly numerous in America anyway.

Readers can perhaps imagine my surprise today when Donald Douglas called my attention to a diary that Rob Taylor posted at Red State:

The Death of Morality and the End of America
. . . The left has long embraced the view that our morality was not only subjective, but a barbarous relic of the past best left behind like all the other great and noble ideas of Western Civilization. The left has promoted the myth that others have no right to judge you no matter what you’ve done, that you should feel no shame no matter how depraved your actions are. And all Americans have to one extent or another embraced that notion. We wallow in our pens of decadence covered in the filth we pretend is freedom and watch the world built on 5,000 years of Western morality burn around us. . . .

What was so striking about Taylor’s sudden emergence as a defender of the “great and noble ideas of Western Civilization” was that, in the process of proclaiming himself a Conservative Moral Arbiter, the pagan decided once again to grind his ax against me.

This is an old grudge of Taylor’s, whose unexplained hatred of me goes back at least to September 2009, when he chose the occasion of the Great LGF Flame War to dogpile on me. Then last December, Taylor used his posting privileges at David Horowitz’s NewsReal blog to compare me to serial killer John Wayne Gacy (!), and when I objected to his malicious defamation, Taylor doubled down, calling my blog a “little LGF like cult of degenerates, ‘Men’s’ movement sissies and neo-nazis,” calling me a “liar” and gay-baiting me (!!) to boot. 

The method of Taylor’s unprovoked attack this time is both familiar and strange:

  • Taylor opens his 1,392-word post by citing the case of Columbia University professor David Epstein, who copped a plea to the misdemeanor offense of “attempted incest” involving the professor’s adult daughter. What is strange about Taylor’s reference to Epstein is that I have covered that case extensively, not only here on the blog, but also writing an American Spectator column about the case and subsequently being the first to report Epstein’s guilty plea. In fact, the June 21 post at The Blaze that Taylor links was prompted by my June 20 post, “Why Is David Epstein Still a Columbia University Professor After Incest Plea?” Why would Taylor begin an attack on me by citing a story that I have covered at such length?
  • After striking his pose as a defender of “5,000 years of Western morality,” Taylor then goes on for four paragraphs about what he calls “a wave of infanticides so common the media barely reports on them.”
  • Next, Taylor makes a striking transition of theme: “But the left is not alone in accommodating and even encouraging our cultural debasement. The right – supposed stewards of Western tradition – have been glad in recent weeks to give the same fellatious treatment to criminals and degenerates for which the left is known.” The unsuspecting reader (not realizing that Taylor is on an expedition of personal ax-grinding) would at that point be forgiven for saying, “Huh? When has ‘the right’ defended perpetrators of incest or infanticide?” But Taylor cites no such example. Rather, he is preparing the reader for the non sequitur leap that follows.
  • Now Taylor makes the leap: “One need look no further than the reaction to Thomas Ball, the child abusing deadbeat father who set himself on fire . . .” Ah! Here we go, then. Readers will recall that my own comment on that New Hampshire case had to do with Amanda Marcotte’s twisted reaction to Ball’s self-immolation. Taylor does not link or reference my post about that, but instead goes after Donald Douglas: “A man who commits suicide is now an idol to people who otherwise will tell you they believe in Christian morality. Correct me if I’m wrong but my Christian friends believe the great warrior Thomas Ball is burning even now for committing the Hell-worthy sin of suicide, but some will still hold this animal up as some sort of hero?” The link is to Douglas’s post about the case, and you can read it and see for yourself whether Douglas (or Dr. Helen or Instapundit, for that matter) are celebrating Ball as an “idol” or ”some sort of hero.” 

Taylor’s attack on Douglas is a complete distortion, and next he turns his attention to me:

Or there’s the online right’s reaction to the Courtney Stodden marriage. The 16-year-old aspiring country singer has married her “manager,” a 51-year-old character actor named Doug Hutchison. One would think that decency would demand that people at least feign disgust at the exploitation of a damaged child by a predatory ne’er-do-well who basically purchased the girl from her trailer trash family. Instead the creepy cradle robber has received equally creepy support [link to my June 22 post] from big name bloggers who attempt to titillate their audience [link to my June 23 post] with “child modeling” [link to a 2002 article at Capitol Hill Blue] videos. Worse, one blogger claimed that being disgusted by this or someone intervening on this child’s behalf would be Taliban-like and could “destroy families.” [Link to Donald Douglas's June 21 post about Stodden.]

Knowing that many people don’t follow links, I’ve added the italicized annotations to show how Taylor has attempted to distort my own writing and to impute bad motives where none existed. Did I offer “creepy support” of the marriage between Hutchison and Stodden? Or did I “titillate” anyone with “child modeling” videos? No and no.

The Hutchison-Stoddard marriage first made headlines on June 20 with an E! Online report and, by that evening, was the subject of widespread coverage as shown at the We Smirch celebrity gossip aggregator. I didn’t notice the story until the next day, when Wombat included it in his “Live at Five” roundup, and didn’t blog about it until June 22. 

Seeking some new angle to a story that was by then already two days old, I noted that Stodden’s mother had vouched for Courtney’s pre-marital virginity and called her “a good Christian girl.” Thus my headline: “A Christian Virgin in Hollywood?”

And that is the post Rob Taylor purposely mischaracterized as “creepy support” for a “creepy cradle robber.”

My June 22 post generated a fair amount of comments, so I returned to the topic the next day with a post — based on a Fox News interview with Stodden’s mother — titled, “Teen Bride’s Mom: ‘Courtney Is Used to This Type of Reaction Towards Her’.”

Noting that the Fox News interview provided “lots of comment fodder,” I then offered to “stir the pot by semi-defending this mismatched marriage.” That is to say, I played devil’s advocate, taking the unpopular side in a controversy for the sake of generating a robust argument. To provide further “comment fodder,” I linked video of Courtney competing in the Miss Washington Teen USA pageant, then updated with a video in which Courtney talked about being a victim of cyber-bullies.

Go read my entire post, please, and see if you find any reason to accept Rob Taylor’s accusation that I was endorsing or advocating what he calls “the exploitation of a damaged child by a predatory ne’er-do-well who basically purchased the girl from her trailer trash family.” (Aside: On what basis does Taylor call the Stodden family “trailer trash”?) And while I’m sure Donald Douglas can speak for himself, for the record Douglas didn’t invoke the Taliban, but rather “Taliban Scott Eric Kaufman,” his personal left-wing nemesis.

Rob Taylor goes on with his jeremiad:

America is not salvageable . . .because the majority of Americans have accepted subjective morality. Incest, rape, child murder and exploitation of children can all be rationalized and justified in our society by a people so debased that they promote our moral decay as “progress” or “liberty” and vilify any voice that espouses Western moral tradition.

Bullshit. You have composed this entire 1,392-word treatise for no other reason than your self-serving motive of taking a cheap shot at me (and Donald Douglas, although I don’t know what grievance you bear against him). I certainly am not an advocate of “subjective morality,” and need no pharisaical sermons from a pagan.

Say what you will about Courtney Stodden, she is by her own declaration both a Christian and a Republican.


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Category: Rule 4

Comments

  • http://twitter.com/TeachersDiction TeachersDictionary

    Neo-Pagans, feh. They’re almost always Christian apostates who wanted a God that would smile on their satyriasis. Boring, the lot of them.

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    (Aside: On what basis does Taylor call the Stodden family “trailer trash”?)

    Stace, have you not been around since 2008? The same was said, and is said, about the Palin family.  They are non-Episcopalian Christians, ergo, trailer trash.  Didn’t you read T. Coddington Van Der Hos the IV or whatever Iowahawk called himself?

  • Anonymous

    I don’t really care very much about neo-paganism, but the distortions are another story.  Looks like someone out to provoke a flame war to try to establish some street cred.

  • Anonymous

    The phrase ”trailer trash” has a specific meaning, especially denoting poverty and moral depravity, and there was nothing in any of the stories I saw to suggest that the Stoddens are poor or depraved. It’s the same thing with Taylor’s accusations that the Stoddens exploited their daughter and sold her as a commodity to Hutchison — there’s just no evidence of that.

    You don’t have to endorse the marriage to say that these particular accusations of Taylor’s are without any known factual basis. What Taylor was doing (it’s obvious to me, if to no one else) was trying to depict the Hutchison-Stodden case as luridly as possible, in order to heighten the reader’s sense of revulsion prior to depicting me as an advocate of “exploitation of children,” etc.

    If he thinks I’m too stupid to see what he’s up to, or if he thinks I’ll silently let myself be so dishonestly smeared, he’s got another think coming.

  • Pingback: Lisa Graas » A Note About Rob Taylor and Stacy McCain

  • Anonymous

    But why would use Red State’s bandwidth in pursuit of a personal vendetta?

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Here we go again.

    I like you both so I won’t take sides, but since I’m a pagan, I feel like I ought to point something out. Most pagans are leftist poseurs, in my honest opinion, but not all of us are leftist, bleeding heart tree huggers or leftover sixties radicals that manifest unto thee through a haze of pot smoke and patchouli fumes preaching a mix of New Age spirituality and Kumbaya universal brotherhood with a touch of Marx added for good measure. Some of us are actually true blue conservatives. Make that true red, white, and blue conservatives. Granted, I don’t worship the same God most of you do, but by the same token I probably view the Bill of Rights with the same degree of reverence that most of you view the Ten Commandments. Rob is on balance at least also a conservative. Granted, probably not as conservative as I am, but he’s definitely on the right, so I don’t see what his problem is with you. But it does take two to tango, and for what its worth, he worships Odin, not Molech.

  • Anonymous

    I like you both so I won’t take sides . . .

    Without provocation, Taylor attacked me, dishonestly smearing me as an advocate of “child exploitation” under the pretended guise of his concern about “Western morality” when, as I point out, he was merely renewing his spiteful personal vendetta against me.

  • Anonymous

    A lot of the “fluffy” pagans are, yes, but there are a fair number of pagans (I’m thinking particularly of the Asatru) who aren’t doing it as an emo teenage rebellion against Mommy and Daddy. They’re just as serious about it as you and I are about God.

    edit: e;fb

  • Pingback: Lisa Graas » The Important Thing is What Rob Taylor and Stacy McCain Agree About

  • http://twitter.com/xRedRoverx Kristi

    Uh… what does “fellatious” mean, anyway…? O_o

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    I regret deeply that he attacked you in that manner, but his concern for western morality is no guise. His old blog was predicated more on true crime stories, and he is seriously anti-drug and pro law-enforcement. He has also had a ferocious attitude towards child predators for some time now. He’s devoted a great deal of his time to that. As a matter of fact, Rob has done yeoman’s work in exposing child abuse among the Wiccan and Pagan community and warning about it even as a systemic problem. 

    That he has attacked you is unfortunate in the extreme. I certainly don’t think you have done anything to warrant that or deserve it, and I read the Stodden post. I took your delving into the issue in the spirit in which I’m sure you intended it. But some people get really hung up on some things, and I guess he’s one of them. It’s easy to lose all sense of perspective when you’re dealing with an issue you really care about.  That’s one reason I tend not to involve myself in advocate groups of any kind. Bear in mind I’m not excusing his attack on you, just trying to understand it, and hopefully help you understand it as well.

    Even though I try not to get too deep into these kinds of thing, I found myself incensed by the never-ended stream of atrocious attacks made in the comments of the one video you posted. I made a few comments to the posters that could conceivably get me arrested. I have a problem with people engaging in harassment of children and I let some of them know in no uncertain terms what I thought should be done to them. Of course, on the bright side, I had a roaring good time doing it. The point is, its not really my pet issue. If I had a cause it would probably be promoting no-kill animal shelters. But even so, I found myself so outraged by the bullshit I was reading I found myself going off on these people.

    Again, I’m not excusing his attack on you, just pointing out that when it comes to certain issues, some people get carried away and lose their perspective.

  • Norman Invasion
  • Anamika

    Look at paganism, Christianity has been trying to destroy that idea for 2000 years, and there are still pagans around. It’s the same with the idea of slavery, or Nazism. Slavery, and Nazism are still ideas many groups believe and practice. You would think no one nowadays would believe the Earth is flat, or that it was created only 6000 years ago, but some people do.

    So, It’s fun to protect your ideas, and attack your opponent’s in a debate. I enjoy debating ideas. Mainly, I’d like for them to get an impartial hearing. People do not need to agree with them to profit by them. If you disagree, and by doing so, clarify your own ideas, or come up with a better one, you have profited by reading them.

  • http://twitter.com/AmPowerBlog Donald Douglas

    Well, when we were blogging the Julian Assange case last Christmas, I played devils’ advocate and went after feminists who attacked Moe Tkacik, etc. Rob’s wife, @JennQPublic. I don’t think she’s gotten over the Twitter flame war we had, and she was unfriendly at CPAC. That’s why Rob Taylor smeared me as well …

  • Anonymous

    Maybe you need to sit Rob down and have a come-to-Jesus talk with him – oh, wait… :(

  • http://saberpoint.blogspot.com Stogie Chomper

    I don’t care one hoot in hell if Rob Taylor is a pagan; one’s religion is personal as long as it doesn’t harm others.  However, I can’t understand why he wants to keep starting flame wars with other bloggers.  I refuted his prior anti-Stacy article at Frontpage Online and was banned from further commenting by his mentor, the odd person known as David Swindle, who in spite of voting for Barack Obama, is the editor there.

    What’s going on here, anyway?  

  • http://twitter.com/JohnRGuardiano John R Guardiano

    Sorry, but the end — or the alleged end, I should say, because I don’t give this cretan any moral credit whatsoever — doesn’t justify the (illicit) means.

    He’s also a self-righteous and a self-serving hypocrite who refuses to acknowledge problems of sexual abuse when doing so might mean being politically incorrect.

    In short, he had it coming. And honestly, Stacy was way too kind and way too indulgent of this PC pagan. I would have given it to him a lot worse.

  • http://twitter.com/JohnRGuardiano John R Guardiano

    Sorry, but the end — or the alleged end, I should say, because I don’t give this cretan any moral credit whatsoever — doesn’t justify the (illicit) means.

    He’s also a self-righteous and a self-serving hypocrite who refuses to acknowledge problems of sexual abuse when doing so might mean being politically incorrect.

    In short, he had it coming. And honestly, Stacy was way too kind and way too indulgent of this PC pagan. I would have given it to him a lot worse.

  • http://twitter.com/DaTechGuyblog Peter Ingemi

    It would seem to me that the “gentleman” in question is basically playing Rule 4 hoping for the maximum effect possible

  • Anamika

    That’s an interesting way to look at it.

  • Anamika

     Most so called spiritual liberals tend to snub their noses at the southern conservatives. Its not fair I say. True love, compassion is seeing all as the one.  

    I grew up in the Deep South. And I have to tell you, often it seems to me that the behavior of folks down there that might stereotypically be called “trailer trash” is more “awakened” than that of many of the spiritual progressives. They would give you the shirt off their back, heck, they’d even give you their last Twinkie!  

    Of course, that is only a perception (of mine) but it sure helps to keep me from snubbing my nose at the Bible Belt folks.

  • Anamika

     I confess, I have not been following this drama closely, so perhaps commenting is out of place for me. My kid brother uses a phrase that sums that up for me: “trying to get all up in somebody’s kool-aid, hen you don’t even know what flavor it is”( or something like
     that), trailer trash speak is what you might call it.

    I am just wondering, what differentiates you from ThePaganTemple/Wombat and the rest of the trailer trash, pu-ssi-es and wet-boys on this or any other conservative blog? It certainly isn’t your style of writing. You appear to be able to give as good as you get and you generalize it pretty well too. Your basic message is not different, if you perceive that it is, it doesn’t come across in what you write as such…splitting hairs at best.

    Is the drama proportionate to what is actually occurring?

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere
  • johnl

    No. There is no pagan tradition or school going back to the old days. Pagans are not still around. That community doesn’t exist anymore. And when people from christian cultures puck up those ideas, they are always colored with christianity. 

    And nobody ever believed the Earth is flat. That’s (brilliant) 19th century anti-RCC propaganda.

  • Anamika

    I have done those things I ought not to have done. I have been rude to eht and have been consigned to the bottom of his booth with only Weiner (or is that Wagner?) for my companion and there is no health in me, miserable offender that I am.

    But Thou O Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ can save me and lead me into Eternal Life.
    Come to Jesus and be Saved.

    Here’s a personal tale.
    I knew a friend who’s boss was riding him at work. After an argument he stormed home. Next day he saw his doctor who told him he was suffering from ‘Burnout’ and shouldn’t go back to work. He put him on a benzo and an SSRI. 18 months later he has no job and is on a sickness benefit for depression and anxiety . He extols the virtues of his doctor who he says diagnosed him with Burnout just in time!

    There is no end to the silliness. But I’ll tell you what. There is probably such a thing as Being Saved, Realization, Enlightenment, and Waking up!

    Realization happens all of a sudden when you wake up to realize you have been CONNED!

    Right from square one.

    This is called the Laughing School of Spirituality.
    Just a few thoughts.

  • Anamika

    The ancient Jews never believed in a “heaven”. That is a pagan belief, adopted by the nascent Christian cult in order to appeal to a broader market. 
    The Pharisees of Paul’s era believed in reincarnation and the Sadducees believed everything ended with death.

    The idea of “heaven and hell” came from the predominant pagan cults which proliferated during ancient Roman times.
    Recommended reading: THE PAGAN CHRIST: Recovering the Lost Light by Tom Harpur
    http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/p/pagan-christ.shtml

  • Anonymous

    Maybe Rob should write the name of his religion on the back of a jean jacket with a bright red maker and go proselytizing in eastern MD beer joints.

  • Anonymous

    Dingbat.

  • http://2011.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    It’s the same thing that motivates atheist to evangelize against Christians with whom they agree about everything else under the sun. The only thing that bothers them more than the suspicion that their Christian friends privately think “YOU’RE GOING TO HELLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!” whenever they’re around, is the complete lack of evidence of any such sentiment.

    So they go out of their way to provoke Christians into betraying it.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    We need more people defending the glories of Western Civilization because it is under constant and deadly assault from without and, more importantly and sadly, from within these days.  At least a millennium ago, when the Mohammedins were at their fiercest, we only had to contend with serious threats from them, and not from the plethora of self-hating and traitorous Westerners that we face today from inside the gates of Christendom.

    However well argued Taylor’s points may be, he forever taints them with his unseemly and despicable attack against Stacy McCain.  Such a move makes me deeply suspicious of his motives in taking up the defense of The West.  He delegitimizes any worthy points he makes by such dishonorable actions.

    Mr. Taylor: It’s hard enough as it is fighting to preserve The Camp Of The Saints & The Beloved City; we don’t need any of it’s residents providing aid and comfort — and ammunition — to our enemies, both foreign and domestic.  Apologize or forever bear the stain of your sullying of a good and decent man.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Yo, Stacy!…Ace has his Morons…can we call ourselves, those of us who comment here on a regular basis, Stacy’s Cult Of Degenerates???

  • johnl

    A most degenerate suggestion!

  • Pingback: With ‘Friends’ Like These… « The Camp Of The Saints

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    They’re the only kind I can make, John, the only kind.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Quoted from and Linked to at: With Friends Like These…

  • Crawford

    What’s your point? Do you have one? All you’re doing is reinforcing what johnl said.

  • Anonymous

    A little wordy I’m afraid needs shortening.

  • johnl

    Just “Degenerates” then.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    I’m sure it will be spoken of casually as ‘Stacy’s Degenerates’, but it is
    important to have an official name – it’s the conservative thing to do,
    don’t you know.

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  • m.e. taylor

    I suppose what struck me was the exchange on Lisa Graas’ post to which you linked, where Rob Taylor launches into an aggressive, spittle-flinging attack on Lisa’s Catholic faith, mocking the sacrament of confession.  I’ve never met a pagan who wasn’t rabidly anti-Christian, and his aggression over there was par for the course.  No one that neck-vein-popping hateful towards Catholic Christianity is a defender of Western culture.

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