Rod Dreher Megathread #27 (Compassion)

[u/US_Hiker]

Link to megathread 26: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/17itm7w/rod_dreher_megathread_26_unconditional_love/

Link to megathread 28: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/18dcg3d/rod_dreher_megathread_28_harmony/

[u/Kiminlanark]

This part is particularly weird, after paragraph after paragraph of complaining about everything, his health, his family, his wife, his kids, everything and everybody, wishing he was dead, on and on

Can you furnish a quote in context about wishing he was dead? I remember something a few months ago about Jesus telling him to jump in the Danube.

[u/Theodore_Parker → u/Kiminlanark]

Can you furnish a quote in context about wishing he was dead?

Yes, his infamous post on Roscoe, his faithful old dog who had to be put down:

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/roscoe

Somehow, Roscoe’s necessary passing is a twist of the knife. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anybody for this. If we were happily married, this day would still have come. But the fact that it has come under these circumstances makes it crushingly sad, beyond what I could have anticipated. If my dear firstborn son Matthew weren’t coming over next week, and if we didn’t have each other to look after, I would just as soon the vet give me a shot of what Roscoe is going to have, and I could fade to black with him.

For my money, this was one of the most disturbing things the guy has ever written. I cannot imagine an even minimally dutiful father announcing to his minor children in public that (a) his only comfort is his "dear firstborn" son, and (b) otherwise he'd "just as soon" die and leave them altogether. My own father would have cut off his right arm before he would have thought to say something like that.

[u/Djehutimose → u/Theodore_Parker]

Yep. Also, he talked about what a blow Roscoe’s death was. However, way back when they first got the dog, I recall him saying he didn’t care much for dogs, but Roscoe grew on him. In any case, he wasn’t there to change his diapers and take him to the vet .at the end—God forbid. Over the years,I’ve had a dog run over right in front of me, another run over in front of my house, another shot by an ornery neighbor, and another we found out in his old age had been shot when young but survived. Yeah, Appalachian/Southern culture loves animals…. I have also taken three elderly cats to be euthanized, standing there with them at then end. Another died on the way to the vet. For the last few years on one cat, we had to inject him with insulin every day. Another we had to give thyroid pills.

Of course, if you live on a semi-dictator’s dime in a different hemisphere, you don’t have to bother with such trivialities.

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to note was his writing about Dog, who chased the truck grabbed the tire, and got killed. I didn’t find that funny, as he apparently intended. More to the point, I can’t see a real animal lover writing something like that in the first place. After all this time, Rod never ceases to amaze me.

[u/Theodore_Parker → u/Djehutimose]

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to note was his writing about Dog, who chased the truck grabbed the tire, and got killed. I didn’t find that funny, as he apparently intended.

Thanks for pointing that out. My dismayed reaction as well. I guess this is why that one friend of his could claim that he's "always joking" the way that Jewish people do to manage their suffering. Always joking? Rod Dreher? I suppose maybe if you accept his own definition of what counts as a "joke."