Polite Politics

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 hours ago, Deweydog said:

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.

I tend to share your dislike of formal, organized religions, but it does seem to really work for some folks (including my sister). More power to them; those who want church should be free to have it (and no, they are not all reactionaries). Just keep the State out of it.

As far as I go, physicist Richard Feynman summarized it perfectly: “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”

[Rubus Leucodermis]

More cancel culture.

https://www.wesh.com/article/desantis-anheuser-busch-lgbtq-bud-light/44609992

[Iceresistance]

4 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

More cancel culture.

https://www.wesh.com/article/desantis-anheuser-busch-lgbtq-bud-light/44609992

Cancel Culture is actually the Democrat's version of McCarthyism.

 

(McCarthyism was Republican dominated in the 1950s, it died away because McCarthy himself was discovered to be a bold-faced liar on his WW2 involvement)

[Deweydog]

22 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I tend to share your dislike of formal, organized religions, but it does seem to really work for some folks (including my sister). More power to them; those who want church should be free to have it (and no, they are not all reactionaries). Just keep the State out of it.

As far as I go, physicist Richard Feynman summarized it perfectly: “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”

Absolutely. Those who seek it, seek it for all kinds of reasons and as I said initially it’s about free will. That being said, it by design exploits the vulnerable and is far more often than not the seeker. Some may say religion is for the weak, but I strongly disagree with that. We can all very easily be strong and vulnerable.

[Anti Marine Layer]

8 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.

I'd say most of the people who vote Democrat or support the left are not Marxists. It's more the government I'm worried about with some hidden agenda. Why else would they be making How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi required reading for the American military? It's clearly against capitalism, claiming it supports racism, as well as against the ideology of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both which are rooted in classical liberalism. 

Then there's Kali Fontanilla, a teacher in California who quit teaching after the curriculum required Ethnic Studies, which her ESL students were complaining that it supported the socialism in some of the countries that they left to come here.

https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/teacher-blows-the-whistle-on-critical-race-theory-in-california-schools/

You can clearly see they are requiring Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools now for graduation.

 

If you don't believe me and think I'm posting some more echo chamber stuff, you can actually see the syllabus of the course that Newsom wants to require for all students to graduate.

Part of it says

Also you can see in the references it has critical race theory

 

 

 

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

Here's where I got the really long post from

https://newdiscourses.com/2023/07/an-open-letter-to-woke-youth/

[Rubus Leucodermis]

13 hours ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

I'd say most of the people who vote Democrat or support the left are not Marxists. It's more the government I'm worried about with some hidden agenda. Why else would they be making How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi required reading for the American military? It's clearly against capitalism, claiming it supports racism, as well as against the ideology of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both which are rooted in classical liberalism. 

Then there's Kali Fontanilla, a teacher in California who quit teaching after the curriculum required Ethnic Studies, which her ESL students were complaining that it supported the socialism in some of the countries that they left to come here.

https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/teacher-blows-the-whistle-on-critical-race-theory-in-california-schools/

You can clearly see they are requiring Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools now for graduation.

 

If you don't believe me and think I'm posting some more echo chamber stuff, you can actually see the syllabus of the course that Newsom wants to require for all students to graduate.

Part of it says

Also you can see in the references it has critical race theory

Ah, critical race theory, the bete noire of the American right.

I sure hope that people are being taught to question capitalism.

Anything worth keeping should be able to withstand questioning.

Anything held to be beyond questioning, is something I would suspect should particularly be questioned, because society is probably trying to indoctrinate people into unquestioning support for it. Likely because it benefits the few and is to the detriment of the masses being indoctrinated.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Ah, critical race theory, the bete noire of the American right.

I sure hope that people are being taught to question capitalism.

Anything worth keeping should be able to withstand questioning.

Anything held to be beyond questioning, is something I would suspect should particularly be questioned, because society is probably trying to indoctrinate people into unquestioning support for it. Likely because it benefits the few and is to the detriment of the masses being indoctrinated.

P.S. I am totally in favor of school children being exposed to criticisms of socialism, too. And criticisms of critical race theory.

Like I said, anything worthwhile should be able to withstand questioning.

I don’t want people to agree with me simply because they were brainwashed into it.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

13 hours ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

Here's where I got the really long post from

https://newdiscourses.com/2023/07/an-open-letter-to-woke-youth/

That's nucking futs.

Maoism has an almost vanishingly small number of fans in the USA.

The principles of fascism, by contrast, are actually strong within the American right, particularly so since the dawn of the Trump Era (and no doubt latently so before then, given how quickly Trump got political support).

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

14 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

Cancel Culture is actually the Democrat's version of McCarthyism.

 

(McCarthyism was Republican dominated in the 1950s, it died away because McCarthy himself was discovered to be a bold-faced liar on his WW2 involvement)

“It’s not ‘cancel culture’ when MY SIDE is doing the cancelling!”

And yes, Captain Obvious, I know who Tailgunner Joe was.

[Andie]

In light of Twitter becoming somewhat less chatty and more adversarial in the ad and political world Elon Musk will be changing the logo to these friendly Twitter birds.
 

[Anti Marine Layer]

On 7/22/2023 at 6:57 AM, Rubus Leucodermis said:

That's nucking futs.

Maoism has an almost vanishingly small number of fans in the USA.

The principles of fascism, by contrast, are actually strong within the American right, particularly so since the dawn of the Trump Era (and no doubt latently so before then, given how quickly Trump got political support).

 

Then why are some refugees of Chinese communism comparing today's "woke revolution" to Mao's Cultural Revolution?

Also I think fascism developed in resistance to communism. Pretty much what WW II was all about. USSR and Germany competing for world power.

[SnarkyGoblin]

11 minutes ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

Then why are some refugees of Chinese communism comparing today's "woke revolution" to Mao's Cultural Revolution?

Lol.  I'm sure plenty of 60 year old Chinese refugees who lived through Mao's revolution knows or cares about your obsession of wokeness. 

Which, btw, has a definition so obfuscated by the right it can literally mean anything now.

[Anti Marine Layer]

28 minutes ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Lol.  I'm sure plenty of 60 year old Chinese refugees who lived through Mao's revolution knows or cares about your obsession of wokeness. 

Which, btw, has a definition so obfuscated by the right it can literally mean anything now.

The original definition was something like being aware of social injustices. 

The way the right defines it is "an attempt by the left to get rid of meritocracy, color blindness, capitalism, equality under the law, freedom of speech and other ideas in the US Constitution because it's keeping white people in power over people of color". Just like in Marxism, which is based on a class struggle, between business owners and workers, CRT replaces that struggle between white people and people of color and blames it mainly on capitalism. It says, for example, that wealth and resources need to be redistributed by the government to create more equal outcomes, which is basically the same thing as socialism.

Also there's slavery in communist China and racism in Sweden today. It's not like socialism will magically get rid of it.

 

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

Florida does not teach students that slavery was good

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

Florida does not teach students that slavery was good

And the Democrats are blowing up on Florida for that, oh man they are in hot water, literally!

 

Imagine if Trump tells the Democrats that they are "Trying to prove that Slavery was a good thing."

[Rubus Leucodermis]

19 hours ago, Anti Marine Layer said:

Also I think fascism developed in resistance to communism. Pretty much what WW II was all about. USSR and Germany competing for world power.

Yes, fascism was one of the political right's responses to communism. (Or more precisely left-wing politics; Mussolini went fascist [he was previously a socialist] in response to the Italian Socialist Party opposing World War I; the organized Communist movement started at around the same time, in opposition to the failure of some Socialist Parties to oppose World War I.)

Probably Exhibit A in why I do not consider right-wing anti-communism to be a pro-freedom position but instead strongly mistrust it and see it as a major threat to freedom.

[SnarkyGoblin]

Lol.

Quote

For his part, Mr. Trump may make a mockery of the debate itself. In 2016, he skipped a Republican primary debate over his feud with the Fox New host Megyn Kelly and “counterprogrammed” a benefit for veterans in Des Moines. On his Truth Social media site on Sunday, Mr. Trump said “so many people have suggested” that he debate the former Fox News star Tucker Carlson on the night of the first Republican debate.

Aides to rival campaigns last week said the Republican National Committee should place sanctions on Mr. Trump if he pulls a similar stunt in August.

The R.N.C. just wants Mr. Trump on the stage. Last week, Ms. McDaniel and David Bossie, who chairs the party’s debates committee, traveled to Bedminster, N.J., to urge him to attend, but he remained noncommittal, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Instead, he ran through various scenarios for what would happen if he did or didn’t participate, including saying that if he didn’t do the first debate, he likely wouldn’t do the others, since he would look desperate if he slid in polls and started participating.

That signing of a pledge to commit to the eventual nominee is nuts.  It just reinforces the notion that loyalty to party matters above everything else - which is how we got into this mess in the first place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/us/politics/republican-presidential-debate-trump-candidates.html?unlocked_article_code=WdZ1MasY3bhj_CQIgd4YyFIkQJL4fETGxB1_65-arROexk4tvoIsNmuH6HRuY-ChgQflO_5dqFo4iV6hE2PqK4WTDSKecxhFK9HmI2DetubFo62d6gSYs-RMNvpr-o8R9abqZHi8Oab1uGDjV6wEUXpaKltihc_dRwWZoD9YvIG8pJmYI5-Sy-BotJHkh-GpVY6258EXJjFXsDpB1-OnM4EYTk9fy1FIf-0id_J5XBtTsZvglnDT75kxE5a08_vYy1kKNjzaCZYYRXoiW0RPCueMrfmW1OuYAMd4OooD3SSsQ2hI4p6nfQpm5ZKti0i5GeFSIplV5Ss1xeGgb5ZWlgBdlhKkgsxSx6Ok-wbyfadIOEDDGaAyi-vDVFyF&smid=nytcore-android-share

[Iceresistance]

3 minutes ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Lol.

That signing of a pledge to commit to the eventual nominee is nuts.  It just reinforces the notion that loyalty to party matters above everything else - which is how we got into this mess in the first place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/us/politics/republican-presidential-debate-trump-candidates.html?unlocked_article_code=WdZ1MasY3bhj_CQIgd4YyFIkQJL4fETGxB1_65-arROexk4tvoIsNmuH6HRuY-ChgQflO_5dqFo4iV6hE2PqK4WTDSKecxhFK9HmI2DetubFo62d6gSYs-RMNvpr-o8R9abqZHi8Oab1uGDjV6wEUXpaKltihc_dRwWZoD9YvIG8pJmYI5-Sy-BotJHkh-GpVY6258EXJjFXsDpB1-OnM4EYTk9fy1FIf-0id_J5XBtTsZvglnDT75kxE5a08_vYy1kKNjzaCZYYRXoiW0RPCueMrfmW1OuYAMd4OooD3SSsQ2hI4p6nfQpm5ZKti0i5GeFSIplV5Ss1xeGgb5ZWlgBdlhKkgsxSx6Ok-wbyfadIOEDDGaAyi-vDVFyF&smid=nytcore-android-share

The mess got even worse when it was discovered that Trump was WIRETAPPED at his tower in 2016!

[Iceresistance]

Confirmed Hate Speech and promoter of violence.

Trans Activist Called on Crowd to Punch TERF Women in the Face During Hate Inciting Speech (msn.com)

[Iceresistance]

That was a jumpscare, but I'm glad he is uninjured.

 

DeSantis in car crash while heading to event in Tennessee but is uninjured: Campaign (msn.com)

[Iceresistance]

Someone may have hijacked CNN, CNN is posting news from 2019-2022!

[Deweydog]

4 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

That was a jumpscare, but I'm glad he is uninjured.

 

DeSantis in car crash while heading to event in Tennessee but is uninjured: Campaign (msn.com)

Looks like his entourage needs to get woke to proper following distances.

[Iceresistance]

1 minute ago, Deweydog said:

Looks like his entourage needs to get woke to proper following distances.

No, it appears it was from an unexpected traffic jam that popped up.

[Deweydog]

8 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

No, it appears it was from an unexpected traffic jam that popped up.

So when traffic slows down you’re fine to just plow into the vehicle in front of you? 

[Iceresistance]

1 minute ago, Deweydog said:

So when traffic slows down you’re fine to just plow into the vehicle in front of you? 

No, I think the traffic stopped faster than they could react. This happens a lot

[Deweydog]

3 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

No, I think the traffic stopped faster than they could react. This happens a lot

It does. And insurance companies love it! But proper following distance and driver attentiveness (awokeness?) is the reason it doesn’t happen every single time we leave the house.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

No, I think the traffic stopped faster than they could react. This happens a lot

And it means that someone was following too closely.

[Anti Marine Layer]

Students today:

Question: Who was the first person to land on the sun?

Answer: Lance Armstrong 

Question: What country is Venice, Italy located in?

Answer: Paris

Question: What is the most evil and racist country in the world?

Answer: America 

Question: What year was America founded?

Answer: 1619

Question: How many genders are there?

Answer: Too many to count. 

[Iceresistance]

Just now, Anti Marine Layer said:

Students today:

Question: Who was the first person to land on the sun?

Answer: Lance Armstrong 

Question: What country is Venice, Italy located in?

Answer: Paris

Question: What is the most evil and racist country in the world?

Answer: America 

Question: What year was America founded?

Answer: 1619

Question: How many genders are there?

Answer: Too many to count. 

Definite brainwashing.

 

In 1619, America was a British Colony!

[Iceresistance]

3 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

And it means that someone was following too closely.

Or they locked up on the brakes, that can happen too.

[Iceresistance]

This just happened, and the Judge was from California.

Federal judge tosses Biden administration asylum rule for migrants (msn.com)

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 minute ago, Iceresistance said:

Or they locked up on the brakes, that can happen too.

If you are following too closely to be able to react to unexpected slowing or stopping and avoid crashing, then you are quite simply following too closely.

[SnarkyGoblin]

49 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

If you are following too closely to be able to react to unexpected slowing or stopping and avoid crashing, then you are quite simply following too closely.

I highly doubt that guy drives.

[Deweydog]

1 hour ago, Iceresistance said:

Or they locked up on the brakes, that can happen too.

Please tell me you don’t have a license and don’t drive on public roadways.

[Chewbacca Defense]

2 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

Or they locked up on the brakes, that can happen too.

Still means they were following too closely.

[SnarkyGoblin]

4 minutes ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

Still means they were following too closely.

I'll always remember my dad telling me that the driver with the damaged front end will 99% of the time be "at fault" In an accident.

[Iceresistance]

44 minutes ago, Deweydog said:

Please tell me you don’t have a license and don’t drive on public roadways.

I don't have a license or drive on roadways, my mother and grandparents think I'm too dangerous!


The only things I've driven were lawnmowers and Pushwackers on my property!

[Iceresistance]

2 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

If you are following too closely to be able to react to unexpected slowing or stopping and avoid crashing, then you are quite simply following too closely.

I have seen video footage of rear-enders caused by locked breaks and the car is refusing to slow down properly, even if the distance was indeed further away.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

1 hour ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

I highly doubt that guy drives.

Nailed it!