"the scalded wasteland of the conservative mind"

[mia]

“...When Jesus was falsely accused of Treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers. During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus, than Democrats have afforded this president in this process.”
—Rep. Barry Loudermilk, Republican of Georgia, an actual member of Congress, on the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President* of the United States

In the 1959 version of Ben-Hur, the title character’s Roman stepfather introduces him to an old friend who has just been named governor of the province of Judea. “Goats,” Pontius Pilate moans at the prospect of his new post, “and Jehovah.” When you come right down to it, and when the six hours of discussion of the two articles of impeachment that have now passed on to the Senate for trial, that’s pretty much all we saw when we saw the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives whole and unfiltered, straight, no chaser. That’s what they have—goats, or at least people who bray like them, and Jehovah, not to mention His Son, whose Name was put to banal and profane use that tested even my expansive limits for public blasphemy. Bringing out the Ecce Homo as a dodge for the single most obvious heathen ever to hold elected office is the kind of thing that would have had you in thumbscrews a few centuries back....

The Republican performance on Wednesday reminded me of nothing more than it did the prolonged and hideous ideological hijacking of the prolonged death of Terri Schiavo, an inhumane festival of conservative ghouls and monsters that revolted almost everyone else in the country. The Republicans were warned by friends and foes that they were riding this indecency over a moral cliff. Instead, they even tried to subpoena a woman whose brain had atrophied to come to Washington and to testify on her own behalf.

They learned nothing from that tawdry episode and, on Wednesday, they played out the same political sociopathy on a grander, but far less tragic, scale. They demonstrated with verve and passion. This time, however, there was nothing at the end of it but more ruin. They howled like dying goats, but there was nobody left to hear, and Jehovah had gone out of the business, at least for the moment. There was nothing left to summon, no dark spirits left to call. Just words on an old parchment, and they didn’t speak its language any more.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30275755/trump-impeached-house-debate-republicans/?fbclid=IwAR1OEsHVnXZZ4iCA0vEvmJQ7-t-YM_u6Opuy85b0DLtAqTAnWLW4qzpBmdM

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Pierce is always excellent but he's really outdone himself this time. This is a keeper.

[guillaumeb]

2. First, Jesus was correctly accused of reason and sedition.

Second, Pilate had a reputation of employing crucifixion mush more than previous administrators in Palestine.

Third, there is no historical evidence that any accused person had any right at a hearing. Only Roman citizens had such rights.

So Mr. Loudermilk has demonstrated his ignorance of the facts both in the case of Jesus, and of Trump.

[stopbush]

3. There's no historical evidence that Jesus even existed.

At best, people are citing fiction to make their points. Citing the Buybull is on par with citing Gone With The Wind.

BTW - what is your source that Pilate had such a reputation? I’ve not heard that before.

[guillaumeb]

4. There is such evidence.

But that is another matter. Loudermilk is simply incorrect in his assertions.

[stopbush]

5. If you mean the "evidence" usually trolloped out by citing

Pliny the Younger, Suetonius and Tacitus, nah. None were contemporaries of Jesus. They simply reported that there were people around who called themselves Christians. None of them made any claims or offered any proof that Jesus existed.

And I hope you’re not referring to the blatant (and amateurish) forgery inserted into Josephus’ “Antiquity of the Jews” known as the Testimonium Flavianum. Most scholars list this as the ONLY existing independent, extra-Biblical verification of the existence of Jesus, while at the same time concluding that it is a third-century forgery. Real Shroud-of-Turin level “evidence.”

And, of course, Josephus wasn’t a contemporary of Jesus either.

If you have “evidence” outside the above I’d love to hear it.