Polite Politics

[Chewbacca Defense]

1 hour ago, Deweydog said:

I grew up in a small town and there was some pretty f*cked up sh*t that went down.

Same here, my small town experiences are from the 80's & 90's.

My family is from your stereotypical small towns in Georgia with the town square and the statue to the confederate soldier in the middle.  "Blacksville" was on the other side of the railroad tracks.  I moved up to Atlanta in middle school, but my grandmother still lived there.  After I got my license I would go down to visit her when I could, and rolled into the town square one Saturday to find the klan holding a rally and passing out "literature."  There is a road that runs straight out of the square for about 1-1.5 miles towards "Blacksville."

I glanced up that road as I was going around the square and there was National Guard and Police at every intersection, interestingly enough, faced towards the square, with their backs towards "Blacksville" 

 

In high school I spent my summers in the deep DEEP south working on my brothers' farm.  I made some friends with some of the locals, and pretty much the only thing to do was cruise around, drink beer and listen to music.  One night about 4-5 of us (all white) wandered in a neighborhood several miles out of town looking for a place to light up, and out of nowhere, one of my friends yells out "oh sh*t!  We're in klan town"  My naive self told him he was full of sh*t, he told me to look around, all the houses were white, all of the vehicles were light colored (mostly white or baby blue) and American made.  We were in a black Toyota pick up listening to rap music.

Needless to say we GTFO of dodge.

Fast forward about 15 years, and I drove from Brunswick on the Georgia coast to that same deep south small town.  They had just removed the confederate battle flag from the Georgia state flag, and there were lots of old flags still flying, and they were flying along side large confederate flags.  I'm sure that same drive today would find a ton of MAGA, Trump and F*ck Biden flags.

 

[Chewbacca Defense]

33 minutes ago, SilverFallsAndrew said:

Many of these towns have 20-30% Hispanic populations so it’s not like some country club in North Bend. 

Not 20 years ago.  I was blown away by the lack of diversity in the Willamette Valley when I moved there.

[Deweydog]

31 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Same here, my small town experiences are from the 80's & 90's.

My family is from your stereotypical small towns in Georgia with the town square and the statue to the confederate soldier in the middle.  "Blacksville" was on the other side of the railroad tracks.  I moved up to Atlanta in middle school, but my grandmother still lived there.  After I got my license I would go down to visit her when I could, and rolled into the town square one Saturday to find the klan holding a rally and passing out "literature."  There is a road that runs straight out of the square for about 1-1.5 miles towards "Blacksville."

I glanced up that road as I was going around the square and there was National Guard and Police at every intersection, interestingly enough, faced towards the square, with their backs towards "Blacksville" 

 

In high school I spent my summers in the deep DEEP south working on my brothers' farm.  I made some friends with some of the locals, and pretty much the only thing to do was cruise around, drink beer and listen to music.  One night about 4-5 of us (all white) wandered in a neighborhood several miles out of town looking for a place to light up, and out of nowhere, one of my friends yells out "oh sh*t!  We're in klan town"  My naive self told him he was full of sh*t, he told me to look around, all the houses were white, all of the vehicles were light colored (mostly white or baby blue) and American made.  We were in a black Toyota pick up listening to rap music.

Needless to say we GTFO of dodge.

Fast forward about 15 years, and I drove from Brunswick on the Georgia coast to that same deep south small town.  They had just removed the confederate battle flag from the Georgia state flag, and there were lots of old flags still flying, and they were flying along side large confederate flags.  I'm sure that same drive today would find a ton of MAGA, Trump and F*ck Biden flags.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love my homeland like no other, but it’s just different flavors of the flawed overall human condition. There’s some sh*t in the big city you can get away with more easily than in small town America and vice versa.

As for the song, I heard it a couple weeks ago. It sounds like something that was literally written in about five minutes, and yes, I’m a total music snob. It’s not even catchy. Throw all the sh*t that gets either side riled up in a bit pot and simmer. It gets those willing to pay $150 a ticket to go see him a little more willing to pay that $150. Plus the $100 they’re gonna spend on alcoholic beverages. Best part is he’s coming to Vancouver in September!!!

[Anti Marine Layer]

FedNow is here NOW!

[roadtonowhere08]

14 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

FedNow is here NOW!

FAQ for you to peruse while you panic: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/fednow-faqs/

 

"We can't even get rid of the f*cking penny, people really think we are going to go to digital money???" - Chewy

[Deweydog]

15 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

FedNow is here NOW!

FedLater will be here later.

[hawkstwelve]

Speaking of faith the other day, new Gallup poll shows 74% of Americans have a belief in God.

On one hand, that number is higher than the media and pop culture would lead you to believe. A pleasant surprise. On the other hand, that's a 16 point drop over just the last two decades. Keep up at that level and we're looking at only around half of Americans believing in God by 2040s. Not a good trend.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/508886/belief-five-spiritual-entities-edges-down-new-lows.aspx

[Chewbacca Defense]

28 minutes ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

FAQ for you to peruse while you panic: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/fednow-faqs/

 

"We can't even get rid of the f*cking penny, people really think we are going to go to digital money???" - Chewy

LOL I stand by my statement.  And I wasn't saying digital money wouldn't be an option I was saying it wouldn't *replace" cash.  Admittedly, I barely ever have more than about $10 cash on hand myself, but that is because I buy everything on a rewards card to rack up the points.  Before getting that card I used cash a heck of a lot more.

Not to mention the fact that our own government recommends as part of natural disaster prep you should have several hundred dollars cash tucked away to pay for things after our infrastructure is decimated by whatever natural disaster shows up.

[Chewbacca Defense]

7 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Speaking of faith the other day, new Gallup poll shows 74% of Americans have a belief in God.

On one hand, that number is higher than the media and pop culture would lead you to believe. A pleasant surprise. On the other hand, that's a 16 point drop over just the last two decades. Keep up at that level and we're looking at only around half of Americans believing in God by 2040s. Not a good trend.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/508886/belief-five-spiritual-entities-edges-down-new-lows.aspx

"Belief Highest Among Frequent Churchgoers, Protestants"

Geeeee.....ya think??????

 

And here I thought belief in god was highest amongst atheists

Seriously though, its no surprise that religious beliefs have dropped double digits as churches have become all about the money and became political entities. 

 

I personally tapped out after I sat through a service at my church in a brand new massive sanctuary with over the top adornments (massive stained glass windows, etc) and the preacher proceeded to lecture the congregation about how much donations/weekly offerings had dropped.  He went on to talk about how disappointed he was and hoped it would improve in the coming months.  He also laid it on pretty thick about all the starving Africans we would not be able to help (this was during the time of the famine in Ethiopia in the mid-80's.  That was the last straw.  Before that I was growing very weary of all the very unchristian-like behavior by many prominent "Christians" in my community and in the country.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

52 minutes ago, hawkstwelve said:

Speaking of faith the other day, new Gallup poll shows 74% of Americans have a belief in God.

On one hand, that number is higher than the media and pop culture would lead you to believe. A pleasant surprise. On the other hand, that's a 16 point drop over just the last two decades. Keep up at that level and we're looking at only around half of Americans believing in God by 2040s. Not a good trend.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/508886/belief-five-spiritual-entities-edges-down-new-lows.aspx

I see it as a trend.  I do not see it as negative or positive.  Plenty of people believing in God are the antithesis of the teachings of most religions.  Plenty of atheists are total jerks as well.  Japan is far less religious than the U.S. and the average person is no less good than the average American.  We love to compare ourselves to Finland... less religious than the U.S.  No barbarism going on there.

Some very religious countries; however, are the butt of many stereotypes and jokes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion

48 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

LOL I stand by my statement.  And I wasn't saying digital money wouldn't be an option I was saying it wouldn't *replace" cash.  Admittedly, I barely ever have more than about $10 cash on hand myself, but that is because I buy everything on a rewards card to rack up the points.  Before getting that card I used cash a heck of a lot more.

Not to mention the fact that our own government recommends as part of natural disaster prep you should have several hundred dollars cash tucked away to pay for things after our infrastructure is decimated by whatever natural disaster shows up.

I know what you meant.  It's a great quote that needed to be repeated, hehe.  A physical currency will be around for a LONG time.

I also almost never use cash.  No points or rewards in that, like you said.

[Deweydog]

1 hour ago, hawkstwelve said:

Speaking of faith the other day, new Gallup poll shows 74% of Americans have a belief in God.

On one hand, that number is higher than the media and pop culture would lead you to believe. A pleasant surprise. On the other hand, that's a 16 point drop over just the last two decades. Keep up at that level and we're looking at only around half of Americans believing in God by 2040s. Not a good trend.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/508886/belief-five-spiritual-entities-edges-down-new-lows.aspx

Why does that have to be good or bad? Free will, baby.

Organized religion has done a bang up job sh*tting the bed when it comes to selling it, becoming less and less cunning with their ability to rebrand what it basically a massive cash grab. God has also never been so partisan here in the US and I think people are getting more and more wise to it, resulting in a cynical boomerang effect that is (at least partially) responsible for the ridiculousness of the left/identity politics.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Deweydog

[SnarkyGoblin]

On 7/19/2023 at 7:34 PM, Anti Marine Layer said:

 

A Letter of Warning to Young Woke People

I think you’ll find what I have to say to you mostly incomprehensible, but you need to hear it. What you are participating in, whether you know it or not, is Western Maoism. This is what your schools and universities and influencers are miseducating you—brainwashing you—into. Western Maoism. Maoism with American characteristics. You might think that’s pretty cool because you don’t know much real history, but you need to know about where it goes because it doesn’t go well for you in the end. If your movement loses, you lose. If your movement wins, you lose. In the meantime, you lose yourselves. You are being molded into the Western equivalent of Mao Zedong’s infamous Red Guard, which he made use of for just two years before destroying them. He explained clearly that different things are needed at different phases of the revolution, and then they’re not needed anymore. He needed a youth rebellion to remove his political enemies and to consolidate his power—until he didn’t anymore. In 1967 they succeeded at defeating Mao’s political rival in the CCP, Liu Shaoqi, and within months, Mao declared the movement too Left, too radical, too destabilizing and unleashed his People’s Liberation Army to put it down. Some died. Most were sent to the countryside to get re-education in labor camps while living in squalor and primitive conditions. That was their reward. Yours will be similar. To get a little historical, the whole philosophy behind “Woke” is based upon the formulations of GWF Hegel’s vision from the early 19th century for how to move History to its intended “End” (the right side of history), and that’s through conflict. Manufacture the conflict, use the conflict, and move History with the conflict through a kind of social alchemy. You are the agents of that manufactured conflict: change agents, or “historical agents.” What Hegel said about you, though, is this: “History uses people and then discards them.” As a movement, Woke believes itself to be the movement of History. History is using you to move itself. Once it does, it will discard you. The conflicts of yesterday aren’t relevant today, and they won’t be needed tomorrow. The agents of History today lose their relevance in the instant they succeed, and History moves on, necessarily without you and the conflict you generated. You know how everything in Woke philosophy is “temporal,” “spacial,” and “contingent”? It’s all a matter of some time in some place? So are you. You are a contingency for the Woke movement. You have your time—until you don’t. When you become useless or a hindrance to the movement of History, you will be discarded. Every Marxist and Hegelian movement in history has proceeded this way, and this one will not be different. I wish you luck with that. In the past, activists like yourselves were seen as useful “political prostitutes,” and after the revolution, you were lined up against the wall and shot or deported to labor-reeducation camps and ground into destruction. Mao explained all of this in 1957, though if you’ve read it, you probably can’t realize it applies to you. He separated the world into “the people” and “enemies” and detailed how each are to be properly dealt with. The “enemies” are to be hated, silenced, bullied, even beaten and destroyed. That’s mostly your job, though the government will help just far enough so that it doesn’t look tyrannical. The “people” are to be handled differently: reeducated, brainwashed, criticized, struggled, until they hold all and only the right opinions and never the wrong ones, which is a process that takes their entire lives. That’s what you’ve signed up for, thinking yourselves virtuous, seeking absolution for your good fortune and privilege, seeking revenge for the inequities you perceive in your “lived experience.” Everyone in this system is abused, though. You know it. You live it. You give it, and you receive it—constantly. What you need to understand about the people you’ve been trained to see as your “enemies,” or “transphobes,” “racists,” “fascists,” “homophobes,” or whatever else, is that most of the people you think are those things are not those things at all. You have been trained to hate, allegedly in the name of “stopping hate.” These people are, by and large, trying to warn you, not trying to uphold “oppression.” What you need to know about the people in the movement you’re supporting, “the people,” including your friends in the movement, is that you’re less than disposable to them. Contingent barely covers it. The Woke movement pretends to care about you—or, worse, “people who look like you”—but it does not. It is using you so its sociopathic fringe can gain power over society, using you as cannon fodder for their unconventional political warfare apparatus. Instead of living your life, growing, learning, preparing a future, you’re doing activism, for them. And they will discard you. Will. Why? Because you are worse than disposable once they get power: you’re a problem. You don’t just become obsolete as the revolution succeeds; you become a liability to what follows. You are being trained by this movement to be a destabilizer. That’s what all that “disrupt and dismantle” stuff is about. You are misled to believe you’re disrupting and dismantling systems of oppression, but you’re merely displacing the existing society for one they’ll seize control over. You’re disrupting and dismantling the foundations of your own liberty so that tyrants can rule over not just the people you have been trained to hate but over everyone. They need you to destabilize the existing system but not the new one they have planned for us. Their intention is to establish a perfectly stable system with them (not most of you) on top of it, and people trained and brainwashed to be destabilizers are a problem in such a system. Mao said that himself too. Like I said, he said that the handling of the people is different in the different phases of the revolution. First you encourage and support destabilizers, and then you crack down on them so that there’s total stability under the new standard. He called it “socialist discipline” under “democratic centralism.” Today it’s called “sustainability and inclusion” under “stakeholder capitalism.” You are an asset today and will be a liability tomorrow. You will be discarded, coldly and violently, if necessary— not by your enemies but by the movement you are supporting. Make no mistake. This fate has awaited the “change agents” of every red revolution in history. Communist defectors have been trying to tell you for decades, longer than most of you have been alive. It’s written all over the pages of history of Communist and other tyrannical regimes, if you will just read them. It will not be different in anything except method this time. If you, as Wokes, “win,” you surely lose—all but the most sociopathic and sycophantic of you, in which case you hollow yourselves out, sell your souls (if you have one left by then), and become a true monster of history. If you don’t believe me, let me ask you: do you see any identity politics in China today? Is China Woke? Will it go Woke? No! They already did that, and that phase of their revolution is over. It is viciously suppressed there, and they laugh at you here in the West and call you baizuo, white left. They know what you are and how misinformed and misguided you are. Their operatives attempt to stoke these fires and use you because you are strategically useful to their anti-American aims, which you foolishly might share. In China, however, they’re openly encouraging patriarchy and masculinity. They’re 2 racially ruthless. They stamp out homosexuality. Why? They did Intersectionality already with red and black identity groups, got what they wanted out of it, and discarded it (and its change agents) in favor of power. That’s your future. Look at the screen, scan your face, and smile for the government, and don’t dare signal in any way that you think anything you shouldn’t be thinking. You have been falsely convinced that you’re the protagonists in a vast morality play called “the arc of History” and that you’re “bending it toward justice.” You’re “on the right side of History,” and that feels good—right up until the boot comes crashing down on your face. Then you’ll realize it. You are bending the arc of history, of course, if we can even indulge such a metaphor, and you’re bending it straight into a twenty-first-century gulag, whatever those will look like in our increasingly Black Mirror society. You will be “thought reformed,” or you will be discarded. Do you want to be its guard, Agent Smith? Would you like to be its corrupt administrator? Is it worth the sale of your soul? Some of you might aspire to such a demonic station in your lives, but most of you don’t. You’ll be subjected to it instead. Even if you take up this evil ambition, don’t you know where it goes? Constant paranoia. Constant fear. The Red Guard was utilized to destroy Mao’s political enemies in the CCP. And what will you do when they change the specifications of the ideology, perhaps deciding that trans rights are too expensive and disruptive for the new system that no longer needs that means of social agitation? What will you do? Resist? Good luck with that, comrade. So, if you win, you lose. You have a right to wonder how this happened to you. Why have your generations been co-opted into this horrible situation? Your education, your schools, your entertainment, your universities, your peers tried to make you “change agents” and “global citizens” instead of educated adults. If this system wins, you lose because you know too much and are too big a problem. Your only option will be to sell your soul to it, and how much is that worth to you? Think I’m kidding about that, by the way? Mao said, “not to have correct political opinions is like not having a soul.” Think about that and what this is costing you, whether you participate or cower against it. Doesn’t that ring true? That’s what you’re sacrificing. Every time you tell a lie to fit in, you sell part of your soul. How many lies have you told to fit in with the “critical” crowd around you? This corruption of you and your future is happening all around you, but most importantly in place of your education, which could otherwise protect you from it. You’re not getting the education you could be or perhaps aren’t getting a real education at all. You’re not learning to be informed, independent adults who can answer questions about reality and navigate it successfully. You’re being taught you have to defer to some kind of expert to answer a question like “what is a woman?” There are costs to this, and not just the obvious ones for you and your future on a personal level. The thing you consider your education is simultaneously being degraded in every meaningful sense of the word, corrupted at its most essential level. You are losing your chance to get educated while the thing we call education itself is corrupting itself into its opposite. You are becoming less functional for the world ahead of you, so your education is corrupted, and you are becoming less and less marketable in the future world, whichever system wins, so the credentialing function education serves is also being corrupted. Of course, the perversity of this is that they’re not just doing this to you, they’re making you demand they do it to you too—“for justice.” 3 Whichever system wins, you’re getting degrees that are increasingly being seen as liabilities, not assets, in the working world that lies around or ahead of you. If that future is not Woke, you’re a liability to it because you’ve been trained to be a Woke destabilizer and learned to focus on social theory instead of genuine education and skills. If that future is Woke, you’re a liability to it because you’ve been trained to be a destabilizer that the incoming system not only doesn’t want but can’t abide. And again, they’ve convinced you to demand this in place of a genuine education. It’s sick. You have at most one option: to sell out completely. To have nothing authentic left about yourself. The only place you will have a future is inside the most corrupt megacorporate sector that is our new Western Soviet—a council of “stakeholders” that knows “the Science of Right Human Relations” and the keys to “Sustainable Development.” If it supports trans rights and reducing emissions today, you will support those things. If it changes its mind tomorrow for the glory of the new system, so will you, or you will be eliminated. Your only path to success inside the system is to become a hollow, soulless functionary in a fascistic megacorporate and/or governmental public-private partnership machine. Your only path to success outside the system is to abandon it as soon as possible and start healing yourself psychologically, emotionally, and educationally. Your fate if the Woke system wins, to be disposed of or hollowed out and used as a functionary of its changing whims, should have little appeal. It certainly won’t bring about justice, and it won’t allow you to be a prosperous individual, or an individual at all. Your false prosperity will be available in direct proportion to your inauthenticity and corruptibility, the markers of your true utility to the machine you don’t seem to realize you’re supporting. On the other hand, your fate if the Woke system loses, is a hard life that’s made easier only by repenting of these errors and working to correct them, and the sooner the better. Already employers throughout the West increasingly suspect that if you have a college degree at all you’re probably Woke, radically Leftist, entitled, unlikely to work hard, likely to create a hostile working environment, underskilled, and likely to sue if fired even on perfectly solid grounds. If you’re Woke, they know it’s true. You’re a liability to them, and many of them are only still hiring you because they have to to keep their place in the corrupt corporate scoring schemes that control the way business is now done in the West. You are either unhirable or hirable only to satisfy the ESG demands of a sprawling corrupt bureaucracy. If that gives way, who are you? If it succeeds and you participate in it, what are you? So, why you? Because you happen to be the age you are at the worst time in Western history to be the age you are, and because many of you come from wealth and status and other resources the System covets and requires to succeed (they’re not really against “privilege,” they just want to redistribute and repurpose it). They need those resources. They need your enthusiasm and zeal. They need your impressionable minds. They need the future citizens and the future leaders, but History uses people and then discards them. They don’t need you for long, and they only need you for specific purposes, then you will be corrected or discarded, unless you choose to come off worse by selling out. My message to you about the Woke Marxist movement is simple. You need to know what you’re really involved in, stop participating, deprogram yourself and your friends, and start fighting for the blessings of Liberty that allowed you to have the privilege to think this way in the first place. You can and might lose it—the first generation in American history to face the loss of liberty, and you’re enslaving yourselves. You’ve been sold a false promise of “liberation” in place of liberty, and you need to realize you’ve been scammed. 4 “Liberation” movements are lies. Mao called his army—the same one he dispatched to destroy your counterparts in the Red Guard—the People’s Liberation Army for a reason. The oldest recorded cautionary tale in human history, the story of the Serpent and Eve in the third chapter of Genesis, warns you about liberation, whether you are religious or not. Liberation is a destructive lie. You need to fight for Liberty. Your chains are forged by frauds and locked only in your heads. You are the future. Your choices matter. Choose better. 5

Where do people find this stuff...

[hawkstwelve]

As expected with his even further slant to the right than Trump, DeSantis has suffered 20 point drops in his support with college-educated white Republican voters since earlier this year. 

Being among that demographic I can tell you I've had a similar drop in support with DeSantis. Earlier this year, and especially after his resounding win in Florida, I was looking at him to be the one with the best shot at dethroning Trump. But I've soured on the guy over the past few months, mainly due to his constant drumbeat of "I WILL KILL WOKE", and now I would really like to see anyone but DeSantis become the Trump-alternative candidate. 

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article277479768.html

[hawkstwelve]

9 hours ago, Deweydog said:

Why does that have to be good or bad? Free will, baby.

Organized religion has done a bang up job sh*tting the bed when it comes to selling it, becoming less and less cunning with their ability to rebrand what it basically a massive cash grab. God has also never been so partisan here in the US and I think people are getting more and more wise to it, resulting in a cynical boomerang effect that is (at least partially) responsible for the ridiculousness of the left/identity politics.

Similar to the points that roadtonowhere and I touched on earlier this week, I believe faith (of whatever flavor) can provide a source of hope for people who have otherwise lost it. That hope can sustain and uplift folks who might otherwise turn to more unhealthy outlets to find that missing piece in their life. So it's less of a "we're gonna have less Catholics!" and more of a "where will the hope in our country be at that point?" worry.

As to organized religion's well-documented inability to not shoot itself in the foot, whether that be through coverups of sexual assaults or patronizing non-believers as holier-than-thou, I don't disagree with you. It's a problem of the greater Church's own making and undoubtedly has led to folks turning away from religion. Some deep introspection and soul-searching will need to take place if they hope to reverse that trend.

[Anti Marine Layer]

9 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Where do people find this stuff...

• New
• Discourses
• Bullets

[Rubus Leucodermis]

9 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Where do people find this stuff...

Probably more than anyone here, ML shows signs of spending too much time in an echo chamber. He's actually more thoughtful and intelligent than most of the stuff he reposts, if you can manage to engage him in an actual conversation. I just wish he would stop and think about whether or not what he reads really passes the smell test.

(And in this particular case, taking care to format would have helped. As it is, the overall effect of that post was of someone taking a dump on a public sidewalk and leaving.)

Echo chamber material is designed to press our hot buttons and make us feel righteous while the Others are evil, stupid, depraved, etc. It's a powerful drug that is making the $ocial media empires billions. One must push back against one's gut tendencies when consuming social media or one's voice turns into just one more echo in the chamber.

[Anti Marine Layer]

22 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Echo chamber material is designed to press our hot buttons and make us feel righteous while the Others are evil, stupid, depraved, etc. It's a powerful drug that is making the $ocial media empires billions. One must push back against one's gut tendencies when consuming social media or one's voice turns into just one more echo in the chamber.

The left does the same with climate alarmism, calling America evil and irredeemably racist, silencing all dissenters, promoting violence on college campuses when there's a conservative speaker, wanting to punish people who refuse COVID vaccines, etc.

The woke movement is all about virtue signaling and self righteousness.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

The left does the same with climate alarmism, calling America evil and irredeemably racist, silencing all dissenters, promoting violence on college campuses when there's a conservative speaker, wanting to punish people who refuse COVID vaccines, etc.

The woke movement is all about virtue signaling and self righteousness.

Matthew 7:5 comes to mind.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

The left does the same with climate alarmism, calling America evil and irredeemably racist, silencing all dissenters, promoting violence on college campuses when there's a conservative speaker, wanting to punish people who refuse COVID vaccines, etc.

The woke movement is all about virtue signaling and self righteousness.

And you can't do anything about it.

The only thing you can really do something about is what you say and do.

This goes for all of us.

[MossMan]

On 7/18/2023 at 7:03 PM, Iceresistance said:

Are you serious??

California expands travel ban to three states after transgender student restrictions on school sports | Fox News

Dead serious…VW is going for it!! And she deserves every penny (according to Marine Layer) 

[Iceresistance]

Really Newsom? Fining schools just because they don't do his curriculum?? (Even though that it does appear that some do view this as "Too Extreme")

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom Proposes Fines for School Districts Resisting LGBTQIA2S Curriculum (msn.com)

[SnarkyGoblin]

4 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

As expected with his even further slant to the right than Trump, DeSantis has suffered 20 point drops in his support with college-educated white Republican voters since earlier this year. 

Being among that demographic I can tell you I've had a similar drop in support with DeSantis. Earlier this year, and especially after his resounding win in Florida, I was looking at him to be the one with the best shot at dethroning Trump. But I've soured on the guy over the past few months, mainly due to his constant drumbeat of "I WILL KILL WOKE", and now I would really like to see anyone but DeSantis become the Trump-alternative candidate. 

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article277479768.html

A 1-trick pony indeed.  Like Giuliani and 9/11 (before he went cray-cray) or Inslee and climate change.

Desantis trying to win over the "very conservative" crowd is confusing but I guess they probably looked at the primary electorate and decided to go after the largest block of votes.

[SnarkyGoblin]

3 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Probably more than anyone here, ML shows signs of spending too much time in an echo chamber. He's actually more thoughtful and intelligent than most of the stuff he reposts, if you can manage to engage him in an actual conversation. I just wish he would stop and think about whether or not what he reads really passes the smell test.

(And in this particular case, taking care to format would have helped. As it is, the overall effect of that post was of someone taking a dump on a public sidewalk and leaving.)

Echo chamber material is designed to press our hot buttons and make us feel righteous while the Others are evil, stupid, depraved, etc. It's a powerful drug that is making the $ocial media empires billions. One must push back against one's gut tendencies when consuming social media or one's voice turns into just one more echo in the chamber.

 A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking of gifting a wa post subscription to ML.  No cost on my side.  

There are actually a couple conservative columnists for the paper (Hugh Hewitt, George Will, and Thiessen to name a few).  I think the national review editor in chief also writes for them from time to time.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, Iceresistance said:

Really Newsom? Fining schools just because they don't do his curriculum?? (Even though that it does appear that some do view this as "Too Extreme")

 

California Governor Gavin Newsom Proposes Fines for School Districts Resisting LGBTQIA2S Curriculum (msn.com)

Small potatoes. Check out what DeSantis is doing.

Or doesn't it matter when your side does it?

[Rubus Leucodermis]

48 minutes ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Desantis trying to win over the "very conservative" crowd is confusing but I guess they probably looked at the primary electorate and decided to go after the largest block of votes.

It's the GOP's Trump problem: hard for anyone else to win the primary, but hard for Trump to win the general.

I'd say Trump still has a 50-50 shot in the general. It really depends on what No Labels does. They could peel off enough Biden votes to doom the D's. But most centrists see that, can't stand Trump, and are trying to talk NL out of running this time. And particularly if NL runs, I would not rule out Christie or Cheney (or both as a team) retaliating and running in the general.

[Iceresistance]

10 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Small potatoes. Check out what DeSantis is doing.

Or doesn't it matter when your side does it?

Well, Newsom is proposing a $1.5 Million fine if they refuse to show his curriculums.

 

In Florida, one of the schools got into trouble because they were promoting CRT in Math last year. (I forgot the link because it's old news)

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

Well, Newsom is proposing a $1.5 Million fine if they refuse to show his curriculums.

In Florida, one of the schools got into trouble because they were promoting CRT in Math last year. (I forgot the link because it's old news)

 

So it's only a problem when Newsom does it. I was right.

 

[Iceresistance]

Just now, Rubus Leucodermis said:

 

So it's only a problem when Newsom does it. I was right.

 

Well, I haven't heard much about Florida's schools with DeSantis compared to California's Newsom.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Just now, Iceresistance said:

Well, I haven't heard much about Florida's schools with DeSantis compared to California's Newsom.

It's called living in an echo chamber. Might want to try and escape it.

[Iceresistance]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

It's called living in an echo chamber. Might want to try and escape it.

I even checked MSN, and there is nothing on Florida Schools.

[Iceresistance]

Jayapal really wants Israel wiped from the map

Leading leftist Jayapal faces GOP censure for calling Israel a 'racist state' | Fox News

[Rubus Leucodermis]

30 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

I even checked MSN, and there is nothing on Florida Schools.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-florida-standards-teach-black-people-benefited-slavery-taught-usef-rcna95418

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/called-dont-gay-rules-expanded-12th-grade-florida/story?id=98691183

[Rubus Leucodermis]

27 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

Jayapal really wants Israel wiped from the map

Leading leftist Jayapal faces GOP censure for calling Israel a 'racist state' | Fox News

Or maybe she just wants Israel to be less racist and more democratic.

[Iceresistance]

10 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-florida-standards-teach-black-people-benefited-slavery-taught-usef-rcna95418

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/called-dont-gay-rules-expanded-12th-grade-florida/story?id=98691183

The bottom one is a bit dated.

 

And I actually saw the top one from MSN, but I didn't post it because I expected someone else to do it.

[Iceresistance]

8 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Or maybe she just wants Israel to be less racist and more democratic.

The area where Israel is a nation has been home to Jews for thousands of years.

 

Other aggressive Arab nations tried to wipe them out, but they keep proving themselves that they deserve to stay again and again.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

30 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

The area where Israel is a nation has been home to Jews for thousands of years.

Other aggressive Arab nations tried to wipe them out, but they keep proving themselves that they deserve to stay again and again.

An extremely biased and one-sided summary.

Home to non-Jews for millennia too (not everyone there was a Jew; witness the parable of the good Samaritan).

Occupied by the Ottoman Empire, promised to the Arabs by the British in return for revolting against the Ottomans (one of Britain's enemies in WWI), then the British turn around and promise it to the Zionists as well.

May or may not have seen the light of day given how impractical it was, but then the Holocaust happened. Would have been better to create a Jewish homeland in the somewhere in the land of the ethnic group most responsible for the Holocaust, i.e. the Germans but now probably too late for that.

There is nothing the Palestinians are doing that any other people who lost their country due to the machinations of imperialist geopolitics would do. (And no, I don't like terrorism, just saying it's to be expected given the circumstances.)

[Iceresistance]

2 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

An extremely biased and one-sided summary.

Home to non-Jews for millennia too (not everyone there was a Jew; witness the parable of the good Samaritan).

Occupied by the Ottoman Empire, promised to the Arabs by the British in return for revolting against the Ottomans (one of Britain's enemies in WWI), then the British turn around and promise it to the Zionists as well.

May or may not have seen the light of day given how impractical it was, but then the Holocaust happened. Would have been better to create a Jewish homeland in the somewhere in the land of the ethnic group most responsible for the Holocaust, i.e. the Germans but now probably too late for that.

There is nothing the Palestinians are doing that any other people who lost their country due to the machinations of imperialist geopolitics would do. (And no, I don't like terrorism, just saying it's to be expected given the circumstances.)

Well, I must have done too much one-sided.

 

And yes, Europe would have been a better place, but a huge majority that did survive the Holocaust just left Europe.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

3 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

Well, I must have done too much one-sided.

And yes, Europe would have been a better place, but a huge majority that did survive the Holocaust just left Europe.

How would you feel if China helped Native Americans establish their own ethnostate in Oklahoma (which was originally all Native American land, and was promised by Congress to the Native Americans)?

Suppose you had to pack your sh*t and git on short notice, and ended up in a refugee camp with basically the clothes on your back and a suitcase full of a few possessions?

Would you just accept it, or would you feel resentment?

[Iceresistance]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

How would you feel if China helped Native Americans establish their own ethnostate in Oklahoma (which was originally all Native American land, and was promised by Congress to the Native Americans)?

Suppose you had to pack your sh*t and git on short notice, and ended up in a refugee camp with basically the clothes on your back and a suitcase full of a few possessions?

Would you just accept it, or would you feel resentment?

I would not accept it at all.

 

And besides, it would be viewed as "China sabotage"

(And I strongly doubt that China would ever do that to the Native Americans since they are also American Citizens)

[Deweydog]

7 hours ago, hawkstwelve said:

Similar to the points that roadtonowhere and I touched on earlier this week, I believe faith (of whatever flavor) can provide a source of hope for people who have otherwise lost it. That hope can sustain and uplift folks who might otherwise turn to more unhealthy outlets to find that missing piece in their life. So it's less of a "we're gonna have less Catholics!" and more of a "where will the hope in our country be at that point?" worry.

As to organized religion's well-documented inability to not shoot itself in the foot, whether that be through coverups of sexual assaults or patronizing non-believers as holier-than-thou, I don't disagree with you. It's a problem of the greater Church's own making and undoubtedly has led to folks turning away from religion. Some deep introspection and soul-searching will need to take place if they hope to reverse that trend.

I guess I make a bigger distinction between belief in “God” and having faith or belief in the humanity of being human. I’ve seen faith get hijacked, repurposed, exploited, subverted and weaponized so much over my 48 years it’s just not something I can see as being a catalyst for ripping apart our moral/ethical fabric. As our self-awareness increases, people simply get more comfortable with the fact you can have faith without the noise of organized religion which is nothing but a massive distraction.