Everyone Is Stupid But Me

Little Rock (AP) – In the hill country of Northwest Arkansas there is a group of people who feel as if God told them to change the way people view television.  Like so many radical groups, this one is led by a very charismatic former representative in the Arkansas House of Representatives.  He is a very amiable and persuasive man.  As a real estate agent and an investor he has gained many followers.  He wanted to base his group on religious ground and although he had no formal theological education, James was a charismatic man with great people’s skills so his following kept growing. Because of this growth they needed a place to congregate. What they needed was land that was cheap and and available. They found what they were looking for less then a mile from the county landfill in the hill country of Washington County Arkansas. It wasn’t the most ideal piece of land but it was cheap enough to purchase and get started, besides James wasn’t the best real estate agent.

 

The area had a small enough population (1,671) when they arrived so they figured no one would bother them.  As James saw the needs of his followers start to grow he used some of his own money to purchase the land and the frame of the compound. He then swindled a television network to complete the rest of the compound in exchange for an exclusive one-hour television special about his cult.  He even talked them into finishing the painting, decorating and even furnishing it, complete with appliances and a stocked pantry, citing it would make the “special” they were filming, more special. As the camera arrives the group gets ready. In the morning, they gathered in the compound’s spartan living room, most sitting in a circle on the light tan carpet, legs crossed. Opening a black leather-covered King James Version Bible, James reads a chapter from Proverbs, then stops to drive home the meaning of verses that exhort truthful speech.  That’s one of the rules in this group, no talebaring. They are very religious. But not just any religion, they are their own non-denominational group who meet in their compound for services. In the one-hour special James speaks about how he and his followers consider themselves conservative Christians, and have fundamentalist biblical beliefs. He tries to limit the exposure to the outside world of the adherents as much as possible by practicing the following:

• The only television the family watches are pre-selected wholesome programming on DVD. Absolutely no live television, especially news. On rare occasions they are allowed pre-selected various historical events.
• Internet use is restricted. No Facebook, Twitter or even Google.
• All male family members must keep their hair cut short and they must do so by cutting their own hair to save money.
• All males will wear a polo shirt and slacks or jeans with black socks.
• All females must keep their hair long and pulled back in a clip flowing near the waistline.
• All females will wear skirts or dresses and white socks. No pants allowed!
• All children are home-schooled using a mix of materials, including those of Switched On Schoolhouse, a Christian home schooling program to help mothers who are homeschooling their children.  They also use the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), which is a Christian organization designed to provide instruction on how to find success by following biblical principles. And they use Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) which is designed to develop a biblical literalist educational curriculum.
• For college studies, several of the older kids must use the CollegePlus! program.
• The children are discouraged from dating, but rather practice chaperoned courtship, and the couple abstains from physical contact.
• Each woman is to have as many children toward the cause as God sees fit to give.
• And lastly, No dancing.

Up until now this just sounds like a regular old cult in the mountains of Arkansas. And it seems one day soon everyone will drink the Kool-Aid and there won’t even be that far of a drive to dump the bodies in the landfill.  It turns out this is a cult more of us are familiar with then we realize.  This is the cult of the Duggar Family of 19 Kids and Counting, which is led by James “Jim Bob” Duggar who will be played by Kenneth Parcells from 30 Rock for this rant.

At the time of this writing the show is  named 19 Kids and Counting but it has already been changed twice so look for it to change a third time if she gets pregnant again. As my dad would say, “Don’t you know what causes that?” I don’t know why he keeps doing this to that poor lady?  Bill Burr was right, these people are taking a dump everyday and its going to end up in a river somewhere.  They are just more in the way people that are making worse for the rest of us.  I know there will be plenty of people mad about this rant. They all have the same argument,“They aren‘t on tax payer dollars, they provide for themselves, so who cares?” I am totally with you, I don’t care if they all drink the Kool-Aid, in fact if they would, that would totally free up some space on the DVR that my wife takes up; but its not that they are having kids its the way they go about it (No get your head out of the gutter).  I mean how they are raising the children. I put that fake news article up there to show you how crazy and weird cults can be, but each and every piece of information in that fake article was absolutely real about the Duggars, it must be true, I looked it up on Wikipedia. Plus, the show comes on TLC, the LEARNING channel, and if you don’t know how I feel about that then check out an old rant I wrote about that.  The problem I have with it is that they are sheltering their kids from the real world. Now I believe that parents should shelter their kids from the Real World, but not the real world. If you don’t let your kids watch television or look at news on the Internet they have no idea that some men hijacked a plane and flew it into the world trade centers in New York.  They can’t listen to comedy albums and even if they could, they wouldn’t get a majority of the jokes that are topical in nature. And to sit in the car… in your parents car… parked in your girlfriend’s parent’s driveway and make out while you listened to your dad’s Marvin Gaye tape back in high school, is not even a remote possibility. If one of the kids is angry that something happened because they live in a house with 21 people in it and was frustrated and just wanted to go to his own room put on his headphones and listen to some Stevie to relax, he can’t. In fact they might not know who Stevie is. You can’t keep your kids all bottled up at home and try to teach them about the world through your eyes. Let them experience the feeling of looking up something on the Internet and following a referred link to another site and another and another until you have 19 Tabs and Counting across the top of your browser.  Let them watch the news and see how bad it can be out there. If its sunshiny every single day, when it finally does rain on you it will be that much worse. And besides when it rains near the Duggar house the next door mountain smells like hot wet garbage.

I just think experiences are what teaches people.  If you tell a kid that the stove is hot they might still touch it to see; but once they do touch it and get burned then they will have learned a valuable lesson. For instance, Joshua, the Duggars’ oldest son, finished high school (and by high school I mean living room) at age 16 I guess he’s like Doogie Howser, MD. It turns out momma Duggar’s tests with Hershey kisses instead of grades aren’t as hard as we thought. Well, he passed the state’s test for a GED (Good Enough Diploma). Not to say that Josh isn’t smart enough but at the time Arkansas was ranked as the 37th smartest state. Now he is considering applying to a California law school that permits distance learning. For some reason ( i.e. home schooling and internet law school) I see the courtroom proceedings going something like this. Its probably not all that bad but I cant help but notice that the LEARNING channel puts on the air some crap that these people spout off as facts.  Jim Bob Dugger, the dad, said in the most recent episode that “Overpopulation is a myth. All the people of the world can fit inside the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida.”  If he had the Internet he would realize that Jacksonville, FL is 885 square miles and that there are roughly 7 billion people in the world which leaves 2.5 square inches per person; which is plenty of space when you are used to living with 21 people in you house.

Staying together in the house is one thing but how do you keep all those people together in public.  If they walk into a Dollar General it must be like a redneck flash mob is coming in.  How does the warden keep up with his kids? Well, the Duggars wear the same color shirts to keep track of each other in public. They also use the buddy system, where an older sibling is responsible for a number of the younger siblings. Just like parents used be.

 

But there is a reason they have so many children and no, its not because momma Duggar loves sex (although who wouldn’t with Kenneth).  Its their belief in the Quiverfull movement that is happening all around the United States.  You may be asking yourself, what the hell is the Quiverfull movement?

Quiverfull takes its name from Psalm 127: “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.” These people refer to their children as arrows and their quiver is their family made out of momma Duggar’s va-jay-jay, where they keep the arrows… in case an enemy is at the gates they will have enough children to shoot at them to not be put to shame.  I suggest they hold the top of Mt. Duggar it seems to be the highest point near the compound, it just makes sense militarily. Click on the map below.

 

These are just some of the reasons we should stop enabling these people to keep making more in the way people that will grow up with identity problems because they were the middle child. Just like number 10 ( Jedidiah) I know people who are the middle child of 3 and have identity issues. What the hell do I know, maybe they will all be fine and live to a rip old age and each have 20 kids. If each of them do, that make 400 people from one family. Is 400 Duggars too much?  Regardless my wife loves watching the show and makes fun of me for hating it but if TLC could do me a favor and stop playing it maybe I could have my DVR back and erase those 19 Shows and Counting.