Just read a fascinating article on the Vox that asserts that in this world of right wing media and terrified GOP representatives, it is entirely possible that Mueller may prove his case and nothing will change.
Here’s a small sample:
As long as conservatives can do something — steal an election, gerrymander crazy districts to maximize GOP advantage, use the filibuster as a routine tool of opposition, launch congressional investigations as political attacks, hold the debt ceiling hostage, repress voting among minorities, withhold a confirmation vote on a Supreme Court nominee, defend a known fraud and sexual predator who has likely colluded with a foreign government to gain the presidency — they will do it, knowing they’ll be backed by a relentlessly on-message media apparatus.
You can find the entire article here.
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The article is about much worse than that. It shows how the right-wing noise machine has basically been warring against the very concept of knowledge itself! Without that, there is no human civilization that can exist.
This is bigger than America, or even Western Civilization.
I used to participate in a lot of political discussions online, both world politics and local politics. I just don’t feel like doing it anymore.
When there is still a chance of cure, you discuss possible treatments. But now I feel it’s like discussing treatment when the disease is terminal.
I hope I’m being too pessimistic, but between the escalation of aggressive nationalism, climate change denial, attack on the very concept of truth, a capitalism that is more and more out of control, rampant nihilism, right-wing parties being colonized by monstrous intruders from the fringe, and left-wing parties being so out-of-touch and helpless, I don’t see anything good coming out of any of this.
It won’t matter to the Right. Of that there is no question. It won’t matter, and we’ve already seen the seeds of the talking points planted earlier this year.
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We’ve actually already seen Fox News, conservative talk radio, the electronic conservative media, and even some elected Republicans push this idea. We have already seen the right-wing bubble world literally respond to the idea that collusion could be proven by saying, “So what?”
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We have literally already seen conservative pundits declare that collusion is not illegal anyhow, so what does it matter. Well, you know… Unless they’re making up stuff about Obama and Hillary. Then collusion is a death penalty offense. And then, because they’d been told what to think on the matter, the faithful went forward and informed the clueless around the water coolers at work that collusion wasn’t a crime so who cares what Trump never actually did anyhow.
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And this should be a surprise to no one who has been watching what the alternate reality right-wing bubble world
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Seriously, think back to the court challenges put up against the ACA. Three lower courts would dismiss the claims of being unconstitutional and there would be crickets by the right-wing noise machine. But then, the moment a lower court ruled that there may be aspects of it that were unconstitutional, they trumpeted it to the heavens and demanded that a single lower court ruling in a single state meant the entire program had to be suspended. They told the faithful what to think, and the faithful went to blogs and water-coolers and demanded to know why the lawless Obama administration wasn’t abiding by the court’s ruling and shutting down Obamacare.
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Now, let’s move forward in time a bit to the Supreme Court- after the rulings of a number of lower courts had gone back and forth on the matter -ruling that laws prohibiting gay marriage were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, the single highest court in the land and a part of the constitutionally designed system of our government, made a ruling in favor of gay marriage.
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Remember the responses from everything from professional conservative bloggers to elected Teapublicans? They said the Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t really mean anything. They said that just because the Supreme Court ruled laws prohibiting gay marriage unconstitutional, it didn’t actually make those laws unconstitutional and Republicans could ignore the ruling if they wanted to. And, well, anyone refusing to abide by the SCOTUS ruling became conservative folk heroes and the faithful went to blogs and water-coolers and tried to convince people with functioning brains that a SCOTUS ruling didn’t really have any power and and Republicans could ignore the ruling if they wanted to.
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If an unarmed black man is shot in the back and a taser is planted next to the body, the message pushed by the conservative media is he was still a thug and, hey, his fault because he should have just done what the officer said. If he’d just done what he was told, he’d still be alive. And, boy, blacks need to fix the criminal problem in their community. This becomes the talking point repeated out there by the faithful.
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Armed white militia members point weapons at the heads of federal officials and law enforcement to protect a white criminal and then some of the same members of that group take a building and hold it with threats of violence should anyone try to remove them. The conservative media literally hails them as heroes and patriots and elected Teapublicans are publicly praising them and taking their side in the matter. This becomes the talking point repeated out there by the faithful.
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How many freaking hearings and investigations did we have on Benghazi? How many of them were Republican led and largely controlled? Yet every one of them, since they were forced to work only with facts, came back debunking the talking points of the right-wing bubble world talking points and fake beliefs. What was the response every single time? The conservative media and elected Republicans swore that the results weren’t right, they demanded and got yet another investigation, they repeated the now multiple time debunked lies they cherished, and the faithful simply kept regurgitating the lies because they liked them more than they liked the facts.
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The right-wing bubble world talked an armed subject into such a state that he walked into a pizza joint with a gun and told them he was investigating Hillary’s underage sex slave ring. The right-wing bubble world has people thinking that Hillary Clinton and Obama personally gave Russia tons of American Uranium after being bribed.
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In the 1990s, the mainstream of the Republican party and conservative America embraced a serial liar named Rush Limbaugh. They promoted him, the Republicans in Congress christened him “The Majority Maker” and made him an honorary member of the Congressional Class of 1994.
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That was truly the start of the mainstream of American conservatism becoming a reality denying entity. And then we got Fox News and Drudge and the total perversion of The American Spectator.
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Drudge should have been an early warning sign of how bad it would get. Here’s a man who got on his radio show (as did Michael Savage come to think of it) and, in order to defend an elected Republican accused of improper sexual conduct with minors, painted the underage kids as the predators and Foley as the victim; Savage going so far as to suggest the kid was a Democrat setting Foley up. Not only were Drudge and Savage not shunned, their fans went out and simply regurgitated their garbage.
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Now we have things like RedState and Breitbart and InfoWars and others added into the mix. And conservatives, many of them at least, have gladly surrendered the idea of facts and truth having meaning in favor of embracing what they want to hear. We saw conservatives attack historians and flock to change information on sites like Wikipedia in order to alter historical fact to fit the inaccurate versions people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann spewed out to the press. We have a mainstream conservative voting base that will look at Donald Trump lie to them for 15 minutes straight and walk away saying every word of it was the gospel truth.
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Here is the honest to God, simple truth about a number of elected Republicans and their voter base and the Trump voter base. Trump could walk out in front of the press tomorrow with Putin next to him and declare that he did it, he personally oversaw the collusion, and he wanted to personally thank Putin for putting him in the White House and they would still find ways to rationalize and excuse it and claim it wasn’t really illegal or problem because Hillary and her emails.
Bravo, Jerry — well said.
The question that occurs then, though, is … then what? Suppose all of this does come to pass: collusion is proven and the GOP basically tell the country “screw you, we won and that’s all that matters.” What do we, the part of the population that actually gives a crap about silly things like reality, facts, law, etc. … what do we do?
I’m not seeing any answers to that question that I like.
That’s because the answer to that question isn’t very “likeable.” Either roll over and give up… or stand up and fight back.
But just because it isn’t likeable, doesn’t mean its not the correct answer.
It’s obvious at this time that Republicans don’t care that this country is well and truly fûçkëd, as they are happily doing the fûçkìņg.
If their Tribal Leaders are the ones doing it, then it is not possible that it is being done to them. Only The Other is being hurt. They are still in control.
Disgusting, distressing, outrageous, depressing … yes.
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Surprising? No. Sadly …
Good luck, Caesar. We blew it.
I agree with much of what this article says, but the flaw is that refuses to acknowledge the wrong-doing on the other side. It blames the right exclusively, and fails to address the many instances where the Democrats and the left are every bit as guilty.
Conservatives believe lies, and reflexively defends their guy regardless of the validity of the charges. They don’t even care if the accusations are true. I concede that’s become the truth, and we only quibble on when that began.
The left, however, has shown every bit the willingness to tolerate crooks, liars, and other scum that they accuse the right of. If you believe the Clintons weren’t shady, and the Obama administration was the most scandal-free Presidency in history, then you’ve got no room to blame conservatives.
Until both sides demand better, and are willing to sacrifice the chance for power in favor of character, the country is doomed to continue this path.
Oh yeah, lets not get to up in arms… there’s bad people on both sides. Where have we heard that before?
Except, just like the protesters and the neo-nazi’s, the bad isn’t equal. The Clinton and Obama administrations definitely both did bad things. And i don’t think there’s anybody out there on the left that won’t admit that.
But those administrations weren’t out there demonizing the news media, scientific consensus, and civil rights (and with healthcare and immigration, some would argue human rights). They weren’t out there stoking the anger and the fears of the scared in this same manner. And neither of them promoted the “me first and last” attitude of the far/alt-right.
No, they were out there demonizing free speech, unleashing the IRS on political foes, free exercise of religion, weakening national security, selling our missile technology to the ChiComs, getting bløw jøbš in the Oval Office, committing perjury, taking hammers to e-mail servers, selling guns to Mexican drug cartels, committing warrantless wiretaps on the press, betraying US allies, and strengthening our enemies.
I’ve broken with Republicans over Trump, and received much grief for it. However, I’m dámņ well going to hold the left to the same standard I hold the right.
At this time in history, the only defining political morality is the retention of power. Until both sides decide that has to change, this crisis is going to continue.
It would help your cause if you stayed factual.
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“taking hammers to e-mail servers”
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Because if Trump tweets it, it’s good enough as fact.
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They smashed two of Clinton’s 13 decommissioned Blackberries by breaking them in half and smashing them with hammers. Depending on what the device was used for, that’s actually standard procedure. By policy, all agencies must either recycle or donate used electronics for reuse; including the State Department. Some devices are wiped and reused, but others are destroyed as part of the recycling process depending on if they were used to convey or store sensitive data. It is sometimes possible to restore “deleted” data after all.
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Her aides turned theirs in, and they were destroyed per normal procedure.
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http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/251476-clinton-aides-blackberries-likely-destroyed
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The servers were simply run through with BleachBit.
“They smashed two of Clinton’s 13 decommissioned Blackberries”
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Force of habit to type “decommissioned” when talking about such devices being destroyed after use like this. Hers were not technically decommissioned as they were personal devices. However, what she did with them when they were no longer to be used by her falls in line with what would have likely happened to them had they been government issued devices.
Malcolm –
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I blame the Left plenty, but for other things. For instance, I blame the Left for selling out to extreme free market capitalism almost as much as the Right, and in the process letting the Alt-Right emerge as the only loud critic of uncontrolled capitalism (however cynical and dishonest the criticism, considering that Trump them turned around and appointed a rogue’s gallery of Wall Street types to his cabinet).
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I blame the Left for losing interest in talking to or even considering a key segment of the population that should be a natural fit for leftism: working class white folks, and by doing this giving the election away to Trump.
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I blame the Left for being more interested in symbols, call-outs, boycotts, and assorted trivia than in attaining any real power.
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I blame the Left for overly promoting moral relativism, nihilism, and atheism and then being surprised that a new right-wing movement has grown strong by taking advantage of this same climate (i.e., the “since there is no evil, no God, no meaning, and all morality and culture are equally valid, then why not bring back Nazism?” folks)
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In short, I think the Right is largely to blame for Trump, but dámņ it if the Left also didn’t their part to bring us to this point…
I don’t see the left demonizing free speech, or curtailing the free practice of one’s religion.
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You are free to make whatever speech you want, you aren’t guaranteed the ability to be listened to, nor to not be drowned out by those who disagree with you. And definitely not to not hear back from those you might offend. That’s just part of free speech. That goes both ways.
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You are free to practice most whatever religion you want, so long as it doesn’t harm or interfere with the rights of another. And so long as it doesn’t go against the laws of the land, including laws against discrimination.
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As for the other things… Not sure anybody thinks those are good or defensible. Like i said, both the Clinton and Obama administrations did bad things, nobody is denying that.
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In an effort to show that the Trump administration is lowering the bar further, i’ll point this out:
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At one point in time, within the past 50 years, both sides (Right and Left, and hëll i’d even wager for the most part each administration) committed everything on that list at least once.
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Now, i know we’ll never agree on probably most things, but all of that is in the past… This is now the Trump administration. And it is doing far worse than all of those things (plus probably those things you mentioned). Which is why you admittedly broke with your party. That lowering of the bar is what needs to be fought, before it can even start to be raised back up.
Darn it…. that was supposed to be a reply to Malcolm.
“I don’t see the left demonizing free speech, or curtailing the free practice of one’s religion.”
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I think he’s referencing the Antifa movement and the college protests shutting down (sometimes violently) events featuring conservative speakers. If he is, he’s correct, but trying to frame the fringe as the mainstream.
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The Left is not curtailing anyone’s free practice of religion, though. But you have to forgive many on the Right when this topic comes up. They confuse not being allowed to force their religious views on others or not being allowed to use “religious belief” as an excuse to be bigoted or discriminate against their preferred targets for discrimination.
Really, Jerry? No curtailing of free practice of religion?
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For a Christian, there faith doesn’t stop on Sunday morning. Many of us still believe that even our work is worship to God. When a Christian is called on to use his skills in a manner counter to his beliefs, his being forced to offer a profane worship to God. You might call it discrimination, but to a Christian it’s blasphemy.
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I remember when the issue of gay marriage was debated in these very threads years ago, I, and others pointed out that if gay marriage became the law of land, Christians would be forced to cater the weddings. We were mocked, and told it wouldn’t happen. “No gay couple would ever want to force someone to bake a cake for them.” it was said. Now that it’s happened the same people who told us it would never happen say that Christians should be forced to bake said cakes, or lose their businesses. We were told no gay couple would ever want to get married in a Church that didn’t accept their lifestyle. Churches are now facing lawsuits, and being forced to change their rules over who gets married in a Church. Many are even halting the practice of church weddings to avoid the headache. But that’s okay, because you think they’re hateful.
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On YouTube, people are being demonetized for speaking their views if they don’t line up with leftist orthodoxy. People lose their jobs for broaching controversial subjects in forums asking for solutions, or having their political donations revealed.
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On this issue, I have always been libertarian. If someone wants to refuse service to Christians, that’s fine. But let the sword cut both ways, or don’t bother to tell me there’s no curtailing of religious freedom, or that the attack on free speech is only a fringe thing.
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The problem is that it has become tribal. A Muslim baker won’t be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding, or cater bar mitzvahs because he’s consider part of the left tribe. Note, I don’t think he should be forced to bake the cake either, and I don’t care which tribe he belongs to. Likewise, I support the right of any gay to refuse service to both religions in question. And, I support the right of people to peacefully boycott in response to these things. To force this issue is an attack on freedom of association. You act as if when something is wrong with the world, your only recourse is government action.
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The fatal conceit of the argument over “discrimination” is if it matters. People either have freedom, or they are controlled. If you take away their ability to discriminate, do dumb things, or smart things, you rob them of their freedom. I’ve tried to avoid to the arrogance that is prerequisite to amending those concepts to something that always agrees with me. But then again, if I had that arrogance, I’d be a progressive.
As a leftist and a progressive, I agree that Christian (and Muslim) folks that refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding are being hateful and wrong (particularly as science is closer and closer to prove that homosexuality is a biological thing, not a “choice”). But I don’t think it should necessarily be illegal to be hateful and wrong-headed.
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However, I will give you that: there are enough leftists these days that would welcome government intervention in these cases that I wouldn’t call it a “fringe” position either.
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Rene, I was fairly clear that the freedom of speech thing was the Fringe. Antifa is largely a noisy group of spoiled children and/or outright šhìŧhëádš, but they’re a minority.
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Catering a gay wedding?
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No one wants a bunch of sour-faced people grumbling at their wedding. But preparing food that will be picked up by someone and taken to an event when you’re a business in the public square and you’ve started your business with government assistance (i.e. taxpayer help) of any kind? Sorry, but there were already laws in place barring discrimination based on gender or sexual persuasion. As a matter of fact, the case with the cake shop involved state law codes that existed before the gay marriage ruling.
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If you’re a business in the public square, you don’t get to discriminate.
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Simple question, Malcolm. What if the cake shop said they weren’t serving blacks because their christian belief says the mark of Cain is being black?
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Another simple question, If Christians looking to excuse their bigotry really believed the bûllšhìŧ they were shoveling about matters like this, why are the same ones screeching about businesses not being allowed to discriminate based “Christian beliefs” also the same people having conniption fits that Muslims in this country may choose to not sell pork products in their shops or handle pork products or alcohol at checkout lines?
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The answer to the second one is simple. It’s because they don’t actually believe what they’re saying when they whine that they can’t be bigots and blame the Bible for their bigotry. They know they’re just using that as an excuse to be šhìŧŧÿ people, and they don’t want anyone else using that excuse to be šhìŧŧÿ to them.
Jerry –
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Well, the Bible has always been used as a excuse for a LOT of things. It’s a very old, very complicated book full of contradictions. People saying they’re using the Bible as a guide to live their lives are basically staring at a Rorschach inkblot and calling it divine word. And every generation and every group see a different shape in that inkblot.
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I come from a more conflict-avoidant culture, and I still favor peaceful boycots or starting your own gay-friendly business instead of forcing bigots to provide service. In the long run they will be extinct as a business in any case.
P.S.:
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However, I do agree that any business venture that wants to discriminate should renounce any tax breaks or government incentives. If they do not want to serve the entire population, they have no business benefiting from instutions that are funded by the entire population.
I’m glad to answer those questions for you, in fact, I already have.
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If a Christians bad theology leads him deprive himself of the business dollars of of non-whites, then that his loss, and the matter is between him and God. Once, again, I don’t have the arrogance to insist that man’s conscience is invalid, and his freedom of association should be invalidated because I think he’s a moron.
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I have never seen a Christian be angered that over Muslims refusing to sell pork. It might have happened, but I can assure you it’s not a dominant view that gains much attention in mainstream Christianity. I have seen people object to a Muslim getting a job at a place that sells pork, and insist that he not have to do the job he was hired for. The same principle applies here. If you can’t sell pork, or handle alcohol, don’t seek employment at a place that sells these things. Once again, you insist the the private sector accommodate your idea of fair play. If a Muslim applies for a job as a bartender, should he be paid to not serve beer? If a Christian applies for a job at an adult shop, should he be excused from selling anything pornographic?
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You can call us šhìŧŧÿ people all you want if it makes you sleep better because I don’t expect better from anti-religious bigots.
Rene,
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But I’m addressing the naked hypocrisy of the Bible thumping fake Christians who seem to really only find their faith and their book when they need an excuse to be bigoted áššhølëš.
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Very often these are people that ignore the teachings of the Bible on a daily basis if not actually gleefully embracing many of the seven deadly sins. These are people so fûçkìņg ignorant about what the Bible actually says that in order to protest gay marriage they cited the passage of the Bible where Jesus preaches against such unions without having the first clue that. as they were there spouting of next to their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th spouse, they were regurgitating a cropped section where Jesus condemns divorce.
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These are the cherry-picking Bible mother fûçkërš who who tell you that prohibitions in the Bible they don’t like don’t count since they’re Old Testament, but then condemn homosexuals by citing the Old Testament.
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These are the same two faced preachers who will excuse their continued support of anyone they like dámņëd near no matter the Bible laws broken by them because we are taught to hate the sin, love the sinner. But, dámņ, don’t ask them to do the job they were hired to do or opened a business in the public square to do. Don’t ask them to bake a cake or sell a dress for a wedding they won’t even be in attendance at, because suddenly they’re devout Christians and the Bible says…
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And, again, these are the same pieces of šhìŧ who will declare that liberalism is running amok, that we’ve gone too far, because a cashier working the register at a store who has a Muslim sounding name wouldn’t ring up their booze while other checkout lanes were open (so they, unlike the couple that wanted their cake or the victims of Kim Davis’s bigotry, still got what they wanted) because their faith wouldn’t allow them to do it and how God dámņëd dare they come to this country and not surrender their religious beliefs and oh my god the Shiria Law is here!!! Of course, as it turned out in that case, Allen West is a bigoted dickwad and the reason the kid couldn’t ring it up was he was underage and couldn’t ring up the stuff by state law no matter what religion he was.
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But this same bigoted dickwad who could still get his booze that day if he wanted it because he could use another register thinks Kim Davis is a hero for initially refusing to issue licenses or allow staff to let licenses to gay couples be issued at all.
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Here’s the simple truth about most of the conservatives who pound their Bibles and declare that their belief in the word of their God allows them to be bigoted dìçkš. They don’t give two šhìŧ about the word of their God unless it suits their needs of the moment.
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I’ll defend any church or any other house of worship from be forced to hold a ceremony inside its walls and under its roof if it is in conflict with that religions views. But, sorry, when you leave the church’s property and you enter the workplace, you do the job you were hired for or the job you offered to do for the public. If you can’t do that or cannot find a way to have it done in the same way a store will simply have someone who isn’t underage ring up cigs and booze? Find a new fûçkìņg career.
Jerry –
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Yeah, I agree with all that. I have some family and plenty of co-workers that are Evangelical, and I’ve seen plenty of the hypocrisy you mention. Besides the whole minimizing divorce thing, I’m bewildered by those Christians who are racists and defend their racism with utter bûllšhìŧ like “being tolerant of non-whites, even non-whites who are Christian, has nothing to do with Christianity, it’s a whole separate issue”.
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Say what? What happened to Love Thy Neighbour? It seems like their religion allows them to indulge in any evil that appeals to them, with the flimsiest of excuses. Or, that fighting the progressives takes precendence over everything, and so because many secular progressives are anti-racism, then racism must not be so bad.
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However, regarding homosexuality, I do have some modicum of sympathy for the older Christians who are not particularly nasty about it, but are overwhelmed by what they see as quick and monumental changes in social mores.
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I have always supported gay rights, but sometimes I’m myself surprised by the speed it’s being accepted and incorporated in Western societies. I think Malcolm isn’t completely wrong in pointing out that even Liberals were much more cautious about it a decade or so ago.
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I’m myself happy with the changes, of course. But also surprised at how so many taboos from the time I was a child are being totally reversed.
“However, regarding homosexuality, I do have some modicum of sympathy for the older Christians who are not particularly nasty about it, but are overwhelmed by what they see as quick and monumental changes in social mores.”
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“I have always supported gay rights, but sometimes I’m myself surprised by the speed it’s being accepted and incorporated in Western societies. I think Malcolm isn’t completely wrong in pointing out that even Liberals were much more cautious about it a decade or so ago.”
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You know what, though? I grew up as a teen in the 1980s. I grew up around people that would grow unreasonably angry when they saw a mixed race couple that was black and white and would call their children zebras.
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Well, when they were being somewhat more polite they would call them zebras.
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I was experiencing that in several places I lived, sometimes commonly, from the time I was just starting to become aware of such things in the 1970s through my late teens in the late 1980s.
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Loving v. Virginia was 1967. I was still seeing palpable anger after that ruling ten and twenty years later.
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I had little to no sympathy for the older racists whether or not they were more quietly uncomfortable and not as nasty about it. They were looking at two human beings in love, and they’re twisted view of the world made that something terrifying to them if not downright evil in their eyes.
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Many of them I knew cited their Christian faith for being against “mixing races” in society. But, oddly, it was largely only blacks and whites that caused them to feel that way and cite their faith.
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And you can see their continuing legacy in the rhetoric of the white nationalists that have been emboldened under Trump.
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Likewise, I have little sympathy now for bigots who look at a gay couple and feel their skin crawl (unless it’s the lesbian pørņ that seems really popular in red states) and can’t get past the concept that it’s just two people who love each other.
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I have even less sympathy for the ones that pervert religion to excuse their bigotry.
Jerry –
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I’m a bit of a “zebra” myself, I guess. My mother was half-black. Then again, I live in Brazil, and Brazil is pratically zebra country.
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Anyway, the point is that it’s harder for me to see mixing races as this huge taboo-breaking thing. I aknowledge that in the USA it was taboo-breaking in the 1960s (and remains so now to an extent), and so the comparisions to gay marriage are valid.
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But gay marriage is taboo-breaking everywhere. There are probably other key differences. It’s often forgotten that the fight against racism had prominent religious folks on both sides, and in the 1930s and earlier a lot of the racists actually saw themselves as pro-science, anti-religion guys. Eugenics and all that.
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But that is not really the main issue of what I was talking about.
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It’s just that I still try to hold to a “love the sinner, hate the sin” approach when it comes to bigots that are not particularly nasty. I hate their racism, but I don’t hate everything about them as people. I know it’s not a popular opinion right now in leftist circles. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe racism and sexism and homophobia can only be defeated when you take a harder stance and stop trying to humanize and make excuses for the bigots.
On Antifas…
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I’ve known a few Antifas members (mostly during the Bush II years). I wouldn’t call most of the one’s I’ve met leftists exactly. Most of them are basically anarchists who just want to fight and burn things down, regardless of ideology. There are a few left wing people who get duped into Antifas to keep the cover going of being leftists for the anarchists, but they tend to be who Jerry mentioned.
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On Freedom of Religion and Speech vs. Discrimination and Businesses.
As a business in the public square, there are laws against discrimination against customers. You can’t refuse them. That doesn’t mean you aren’t free to show how much of a bigoted áššhølë you are, or to inform your customers about that, while doing business with them. Of course, in doing so you’ll be exposed and suffer the bad reviews and negative press you deserve.
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If churches don’t want to host weddings they are against, then by all means stop offering them for rent and advertising it as a business service.
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Like it or not, the United States is not and has never been a Christian nation (at least on the law books), we are secular.
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And no, most of the left would be equally upset if a Muslim, Discordian or any other religiously inclined business owner refused service and discriminated against a client for a protected reason, be they baker or whatever.
Well, it didn’t matter when the Chinese interfered in the 1996 election to help Bill Clinton get reelected.
(a reminder -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy)
Why would it matter now – because it’s Russia, not China? You do know that the US and Russia are not actually at war, right? Competitors and rivals, but no declaration of war has ever been passed. For that matter, Trump was fairly clear – “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia and China and all these countries?”.
Whoa whoa whoa – he campagined on being nice to Russia and they expressed a preference? Quelle horreur! Remember who the last guy was to actually get along with a Russian President – what a nightmare that was – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf3vWvi3k6w
Wow… You must be really desperate to muddy the waters. Well, or just ignorant of the facts around the two situations.
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“Well, it didn’t matter when the Chinese interfered in the 1996 election to help Bill Clinton get reelected.”
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I’ll be generous and say you never read anything covering the incident in question in any detail, or the Wiki you link to for that matter, and you’re merely ignorant of facts and key details rather than deliberately trying to be disingenuous about it. For the record, while a country running funds through various entities in order to pump money into a campaign is not something that should be happening, it is not anywhere near the level of open collusion with a foreign government. It is not the same as, as recent testimony indicates happened, offering quid pro quo deals to a foreign power for help with winning an election. It is not the same as working with people who are openly engaged in cyber attacks and trying to get stolen information from them to use.
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Also, really? You think just working with another country that wants to work with you is the same as Putin’s game? Hey, let me ask you this about that video you linked to. You look at those two guys and go find the equivalent with them to this action.
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Trump met with Putin behind closed doors and allowed no access or recordings. At this time, it was well established fact that the Russian government had a hand in hacking the DNC and perhaps other activities that qualified as an attack on this country. Donald Trump, proving to the world that Putin could bend him over and forgo the use of lube anytime he wanted to, comes out of that meeting and declares that he wants to do a joint cyber-security deal with the áššhølë who was behind the cyber attacks. Thank God that even the sniveling yes men Trump surrounded himself with freaked out enough to pull him off of that ledge.
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I mean, seriously, that would have been as ášš backwards and brain fûçkìņg dead ignorant as you robbing my house, everyone knowing you robbed my house, and then me handing you the keys to my place and asking you to keep an eye on it while I was out of town for a couple of weeks.
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“Whoa whoa whoa – he campagined on being nice to Russia and they expressed a preference?”
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Yeah, funny interpretation of events that. You wanna know the big difference between these events besides the obvious ones? The Russian leader of that time wasn’t looking to weaken the US, strengthen Russia at our expense, cause us to alienate our actual allies, and basically bend us over and tell us to smile about it. Oh, and, unlike the man in the White House right now, the man in the White House back then wouldn’t have been brain dead fûçkìņg stupid enough to let him do it just because the Russian leader whispered a few ego stroking sweet nothings to him.
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The issue with the Chinese in the 1990s was not a good thing. But the words “false equivalency” don’t even begin to cover your use of it.
Jerry –
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But… but… you are forgetting one very important thing! Those were icky Chinamen, yellow and un-Christian! It’s totally okay to betray your country, as long as your foreign pals are white, hardcore Christians, crony capitalists like modern Russia.
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Because, as Republicans have been proving for the past couple of years, it has never been about patriotism for them. Rather, it has always been about tribalism. White Christian tribalism.
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So what if they worship a foreign leader that despises the West? The dude is still a white Christian (and so irresistibly manly!). Their true loyalty has never been to America, ironically enough. Yes, and that after decades and decades of claiming otherwise.
The conservatives favorite brain damaged judge and all around hypocrite,Jeanine Pirro of Fox News talking about Trump winning and the charges that Putin may have interfered in the election-
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[In ref to Putin] “At least he’s a Christian!”
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Because, you know, so long as he’s a Christian Putin can do anything he wants to this country and Fox News will just run photos of him shirtless on a horse and tell their viewers to fawn over him.
“You can call us šhìŧŧÿ people all you want if it makes you sleep better because I don’t expect better from anti-religious bigots.”
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I’m not anti-religious at all. As a matter of fact, you can find me in the archives of this site among other places defending religion and the religious as well as praising the value of religion.
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What I am “anti” is the áššhølëš who pervert it and use it like a weapon or use it as an excuse to be bigots and racists. I dislike people who suddenly find the Word of God to be the single most important thing in their life when it comes tome to discriminate or excuse their own hatred, but can’t be bothered when it otherwise gets in the way of what they want.
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It’s amazing how fast hypocrites will go from the Word of God being an immovable wall that does not allow them to even entertain an action, but then when it suits their needs it’s okay because they can always do it now and ask forgiveness on Sunday.