I came across something last night. Hard work became a virtue and money became the way to measure how pleased god was with your hard work. Jerod Henderson (https://www.youtube.com/@_jared) came out with a video (The Protestant Work Ethic) on Nebula last week talking about this. I don't know if/when he'll release it on YouTube.
I highly recommend Nebula, it's my default place to go. It's smaller than YouTube, but no commercials, great content (no video comments, use reddit), free speech without the race to the bottom, they aren't constantly hit with copyright bans designed to squash free speech, and it's content creator owned. They also support their creators more ambitious endeavors, like John de Lancie appearing in IDENTITEAZE.
I’m not sure polls are useful any more. They don’t reach much of the electorate. No pollster has called my cellphone since I went wireless in 2004 (and none of them called my landline before that). Then the people constructing these polls manipulate the data to get what they want.
That last item – religion supposedly equaling morality – may be the single biggest sticking point we have to face. Hitchens remarked about it more than once, wishing that the idea of faith as a virtue could be removed from society.
But it's been stuck there a while, and social inertia is damned slow to change.
That idea has been stuck there since the Church gained the power of the State to enforce it -- about 17 centuries. That's a LOT of social inertia to overcome.
It's not simply religion. It's the underlying CAUSE of religion: faith!
That's the process by which people arrive at conclusions for which there isn’t a lick of supporting evidence, and frequently lots of evidence to the contrary. It’s the root process behind not only religion but also quackery, homeopathy, astrology, levitation, mind-reading, palm-reading, objectivism, ufology, conspiracy theories, imperialism, racism, sexism, climate-change denial, ritual satanic child abuse, numerology, acupuncture, anti-vax movements, perpetual motion, dowsing, personality cults, jingoism, Chinese traditional “medicine”, feng shui, reincarnation, a host of superstitions, and the insidious brain parasite that leads people to endlessly obsess over anyone named Kardashian.
Faith is the real culprit here. Religion is just one of its many unfortunate consequences. The sooner we all recognize faith for the awful, horrible, misbegotten thing it is, instead of blindly singing its praises, the sooner we will have taken the next step in our journey to becoming a sane society.
A teacher of philosophy at Portland State (I think) said that faith is 'pretending to know something you don't know'.
People say that "My faith is an important part of my life". Translate that to "Pretending to know something I don't know is an important part of my life" makes it sound so very ridiculous.
I can agree with you about virtually everything in your list, except two: acupuncture and dowsing. I’ve had enough experience with acupuncture to believe two things:
1) it can work spectacularly well. It can also work not at all.
2) how well it works depends upon the talent of the acupuncturist, much the same as Chiropractic. I’ve seen six acupuncturists. One was absolutely superb, one (my current one) is fairly good, and the other four were about as useful as a tits on a bull. One of them I considered to be actually dangerous.
I’ve had a recurring problem with tendinitis in my left arm. My regular MD gave me a set of exercises, told me to do them every day, and hopefully in about three months the problem will be resolved. The acupuncturist treated me twice, and the problem disappeared for about a year. She treated me again about a year later, and that also worked spectacularly well.
I don’t know why acupuncture seems to work. I agree that the basis for it is reasonably silly, pardon the oxymoron. But there is something happening there, and that I cannot dismiss. I’m a very rational guy.
Regarding dowsing: I absolutely agree that most of it is Quackery. However, my husband’s father was a wasserhexe. He demonstrated his talent conclusively to me. There is no way that he could have faked it, nor would he have any reason to. He was known in his village as a reliable wasserhexe. The last time I told the story, I was given several scientific explanations as to why it was a hoax. Not one of those explanations applied as far as I could tell.
Didn’t acupuncture originate in China or maybe India? Chinese medicine is gentler on the system than western medicine. However one might choose western medicine in an emergency.
Acupuncture is Chinese in origin. It’s actually fairly ancient. I have absolutely no idea why it works, except that it seems to be tied to the talent of the practitioner. My first acupuncturist, the really fabulous one, also believed a great deal in traditional Chinese medicine. I thought myself that it was pretty worthless. She taught my current acupuncturist, but the two times I tried that traditional Chinese medicine with her, let us just say it didn’t work for me.
You might be thinking of ayuravedic medicine, which is Indian in origin.
Your list is long. It seems you’ve given this a lot of thought. Speaking of faith without evidence, Faith is not based on evidence but the things unseen.
Unseen, yes. Also unheard, unfelt, unsmelled, untasted, and unsensed in any other way, coming down to one overall adjective that sums it all up: unbelievable.
I so agree with you Richard. A belief system is created by man. It is not a reality. Man chooses to have faith in a belief system. That belief system becomes his reality. Then man wants to impose his choice of faith on others. Then they demand (dogma) their faith become your reality. Belief is not reality. It is just that, a belief!
Culture conditioning is huge but invisible to most of us living in the Bible Belt. It colors everything. When I was a teenager I moved from TX to Colorado. It was a very delightful culture shock. Somehow decisions brought me back to TX. Sigh!
I'll admit, there are things (a lot of things) that I didn't know.
Conservatism came about from the collapse of the monarchies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CI2vk3ugk). It was created to keep the classist, elitist status quo going. There are people on top, and the masses on the bottom who exist solely to serve their betters.
Prior to that, the "big picture" I held was conservatism was about preserving society as is, and liberalism was about finding better ways of doing things. Conservativism prevented liberalism from rushing headlong into mistakes, and liberalism prevented society from stagnating. Whatever the outcome, society progressed (a friend pointed out that many conservative positions today were once liberal, like women voting - though that may no longer remain the case). Boy, was I ignorant.
The one factor left out in all of this is money. As Cindy Lauper sings, "Money changes everything."
Quibble, but the US Republican party didn't start out that way. It was formed to oppose the Democrats on slavery: the Republicans were the liberals who wanted it ended immediately, everywhere. The Dems were the conservatives who wanted to take a slower approach. Thus, why Lincoln was a Republican.
The GOP didn't get captured by social conservatives until sometime between the late 1800s and early 1900s. The early 20th century robber barons took it over. It's been conservative ever since.
Can I add a (little) quibble? I would not call the Republican Party conservative, they fit the description of ‘reactionary’. At least the definition I learned in history class.
No one in their right mind would want to replace the American Republic with a Christian theocracy. Unfortunately, the people not in their right minds keep trying to get government to backstop their world view, in order to accomplish what they have failed to achieve from their pulpits. Never under estimate a determined minority. The idea religion can be forced on people with a happy ending is about as dangerous as thinking gets.
Honestly, I'm not convinced of that. Earlier in the article, Hemant mentioned people out there who think the bible should influence our laws. I would bet that those same people have no idea HOW it should have an impact on a system that is supposed to be secular and without taint of anything religious. We're talking about a FEELING here, a feeling which comes out of IGNORANCE, paired with the childhood Christian indoctrination that too many of us have been through and too many have failed to get shut of.
I can't escape the suspicion that, when Trump's comeuppance finally arrives (hope-hope-hope!), the overall sense will be that it was Trump's behavior that was problematic and not Christian nationalism ... UNLESS the news media starts emphasizing the part Christian nationalism has had on his administration. What we need it the informed electorate which James Madison spoke of as being necessary to a free state.
And that is one hell of a big honking ask ... and I'm not certain that this country is up to it.
I somewhat agree. Not sure about the Christianity stuff - I think future SCOTUSes will roll back much of the idiocy of this court - but for example when Reagan cut the top tax bracket from 70% down to 35%, it never went back up. I think Trump's cuts to federal offices and functions will outlast him. To the extent he is able to reduce health care and federal services, demolish the fire service, FEMA, etc., etc.... these things won't recover. It'll be like that forever: his legacy will be a smaller, less capable federal government.
As it comes to taxes, I'd be dubious that the top tax bracket will EVER go back up. It's bad optics, never mind clichéd: "Headline: DEMOCRATS RAISE TAXES!" [sigh] We won't mention that the high tax rates post-WWII didn't hurt post-war growth in the US very much if at all. Worse, the monied lobbyists who represent billion-dollar corporations will scream bloody murder if those rates EVER go up again.
And the real hell of it is, we're talking about a model that WORKED. Granted it was 60+ years ago, and some modifications are likely necessary, but IT WORKED and for everyone.
Which suggests that those pushing against higher taxes are more interested in things that work for THEMSELVES than they are in the public at large.
It's not just taxes. OTA is an example of an agency that got it's budget zeroed out because Republicans didn't like it, and it's never come back either. We will be left with a smaller, sh****er government. Not because of the people - I have great respect for them - but simply because of the work we expect the government to do will become drastically larger than what it is able to do. You can have best firefighters in the world, but if you cut their number in half, more fires rage out of control. That's the situation we're going to be in soon with the government - both literally (Trump *literally* cut wildland firefighter jobs) and figuratively (all the metaphorical fires that the USG manages, won't be managed as well).
It seems to me that the 6% Christian Nazionalist figure would jump much higher if the respondents were categorized that way for answering yes to three of the four questions. My preacher brother would definetely give a yes to two of the questions, probably yes to three, but hesitate on one. He would likely answer no to the first, since he knows there are "true" Americans that aren't Christian. But, it is definitely important to him that his country's leader shares his faith. I have asked him this directly. He also believes that the Bible should influence the law, and it would not surprise me if he felt that the Bible should take precedence in cases where it conflicts with the law, at least in some circumstances.
For me, someone is a Christian Nazionalist if they believe a: the US was founded as a Christian Nation, and b: it must "return" to that.
The biblical god himself gives his avowed followers clear instructions on how to treat foreigners in their own beloved Leviticus (Chapter 19, Verses 33 through 34 to be precise). It says foreigners should NOT be mistreated; that they are to be treated as native-born and loved.
Maybe this scripture should be shoved in the faces of those who think Trump is the Second Coming.
There are many ways the US government does not represent the will of the US people. Christian Nationalism is one of the most dangerous ways.
The USA has been fighting a quiet coup for my lifetime, and likely before. The gerrymandering and manipulation of the polls have always put the minority in charge. The moneyed interests have turned decent politicians into corrupt bastards. The current state is only the inevitable result of the decades of trickle down economics and citizens united. They’ve been successful in dumbing down America so that the people don’t know what is happening on Capitol Hill and they don’t care until it is burning down their towns. The people are confused about what is communism, capitalism and socialism. Perfectly illustrated by MTG’s comments about corporate communism, and her lackeys’ eating it up as if she’s brilliant for coming up with it.
Well, now the coup is finally successful and playing out in real time, with real lives, dead airline passengers, destitute federal workers, and senior citizens wasting away from neglect. That’s only what is happening up to today, it is only going to get worse. Our government has not represented the population for fifty plus years. Christian Nationalism is only one aspect.
I fear that Drumpf and the Republicans may very well manufacturer a national emergency to justify the suspension of the upcoming midterm elections and the ultimate suspension of all elections. Remember that he has told his supporters that if they elected him that they wouldn't have to vote again.
If Biden had done a fraction of the things that Trump has done, both the GQP and the mainstream media would be screaming for the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
Their reaction to Trump doing these things? Crickets.
You probably don’t know him, but there is a radio host on LBC, called James O’Brien. He called it ‘footballification’. Meaning that you approve of EVERYTHING your team does. Even if they do tge same thing which you were hopping mad about a couple of days ago when someone else (ie the other lot) did it.
It is all about ratings and clicks, that why the media isn’t doing much about. Bad news brings in more money. Unless Trump does something that might affect the media organization bottom line, like preventing AP from Air Force One because AP refuses to follow Trump’s order about the Gulf. Of Mexico.
The other bad news is that they've just scratched the surface at this point. There are MANY, MANY ways it can become worse -- and we're marching toward them day by day.
MY Senators & Congresswoman are "good guys," but it never hurts to reiterate my favorite Religious Doctrine -- the ABSOLUTE SEPARATION of Church & State.
They'll all get an email reminder regarding religious freedom today.
Christian leaders have misled their followers to equate Christianity with patriotism. As a result, many evangelicals identify as patriots when they are in fact Christian Nationalists, and not have responded to the survey as pro-Christian Nationalist.
Religions are non-democratic by design, therefore fundamentalist Christians are inclined to submit to authoritarian leadership in their faith or politics.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It's the same way cancel culture (every side does it) affects TV shows, movies, beer drinking, and speakers. Capitalistic newstainment means we'll pay attention to the loudest voices. Even Disney is affected by this, despite being "family friendly" and also have "gay day." (Think about it. Who is more likely to pay to stay at your exorbitant resort? A couple with 4 kids, or a gay couple with dual male incomes and no children?)
America might only have 6% christian nationalists, but...
1. they are the loudest whiners
2. christian tribalism means the masses will support them, even if they don't agree with parts of it (they don't understand how package deals work - if you buy a car for the heated seats and it also gets 4mpg, not liking the low mpg doesn't mean you didn't buy a car with low gas mileage)
3. They control the gov't
4. They're good at PR - the left is a mess because they are diverse. Disparate groups that don't stand with each other ("Not my fight." Only until it is.)
5. Frequency of exposure is important. The more you're exposed to something the greater weight the mind gives to it. Three people "detransition" and go on the pundit circuit, not b/c they're concerned, but b/c it's lucrative. Less than 1% of transpeople are dissatisfied with transitioning. 14% (1 in 7) regret getting heart surgery. 17% regret getting hip/knee replacement surgery. Where is the crusade to stop these surgeries? I have yet to meet a single conservative person who ever looked up or is aware of these numbers. There might be an odd unicorn out there that does, but then, they're probably already not a conservative.
But they do put out a pretty good selection of Disney-themed Pride merchandise starting in mid-May. I got some great rainbow-themed StarWars merch when I went for my 50th.
“ If we can get out of this Republican term in one piece, those supposed “Christian values” are going to be blamed for all kinds of unnecessary cruelty. Or at least they should be if the rest of us are effective communicators.”
No, I don’t think so. You can pit a an effective communicator who argues with facts, logic, and experience, against the tribalistic religious bigot, a person who believes everything that they think and questions none of it, And that effective communicator will get precisely nowhere. You cannot reason with people who have no interest in being reasoned with.
And Hemant provides the support for this with this comment: “ Different Christian believers may answer that in different ways, but the conservative Christians in the government always respond by choosing the path that causes the most harm and chaos, even though specific policies like those are rejected by vast majorities of American people.”
Why do they do that? Because it’s fun. Because it reassures them that they are powerful and they matter. It Reassures them that they are better people than they obviously are. Even their moms and their dads, even their heavenly fathers, agree with them.
The issue to me is one of moral corruption. I’ve written about this many times before, especially in relationship to Trump and the Christian right. When aids first made its appearance some 40 years ago, and far too many beautiful and wonderful young men were dying, these so-called Qhristians were having a ball talking about filth and just desserts, ginning up hate and calling it love, morality, godliness. Look at Ted Haggard: drugged fueled orgies with male hookers while proclaiming his holiness and the filth of gay men; that is not merely hypocrisy, that is blind corruption on a grand scale. The antiabortion types loved showing huge photos of bloody body parts; it took me decades to finally realize that they weren’t just making a point, they were getting off on it. I remember General William westMoreland Proudly proclaiming that Vietnamese don’t have the same sensitive feelings towards their families that we white people do, and so it really wasn’t a great tragedy if we were killing them off. Those were not his exact words, of course, but I’m too lazy to look them up.
This is something I wrote 10 years ago. It was entirely prophetic, and you can also send me money to pay for my prophecies.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF ASSHOLERY:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, if thou wisheth to be truly assholier than all:
1) Thou shalt not do anything for those thou hast righteously determined to be thy moral and spiritual inferiors, for thou seeeth truly, despite the very forest of logs in thine own eye.
2) Thou shalt not be required to treat others as you would like to be treated, because those others are truly extra double icky sinners, and thou art not. Thou art special.
3) Yea, thou must always remembereth the day of thine extra double specialness, and keep it assholy. For all days are the days of thy specialness. Thou hast a stone, and may Throw it however thou wilt.
4) It mattereth not that that you happily serve others who rejecteth some of your beliefs, yea, or even unto the entirety of them, because those that thou despiseth fain would challenge only thy beliefs about THEM, not the beliefs thou sayest truly matter. And thou needst not beareth that iniquity. For they are truly not thine equals, as humans, as people of faith, or as citizens. For art thou not special?
5) Yea, though thou walketh through the valley of the shadow of non discrimination laws, whether for religion or sexual orientation, thou needst not render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. For what knoweth Caesar about thy specialness? And if Caesar maketh of thee an exception of the law because of thy specialness, and maketh a mockery of the laws that sayeth thou art not special, doth it not prove that thou art special?
6) Know you not truly, that everything, everywhere and always, is about thee? Yea, even unto the baking of sweet things, and the provision of flowers? For thou art special, and common courtesy, even unto the common ways of successful merchants, is lesser than thy specialness. Pay it no heed, lest thy specialness be hidden under a bushel.
7) Surely, surely, thou mayst discriminate as thou wilt, and sayeth thou with the straightest of faces that those whom thou despiseth are not being discriminated against. For it is, indeed, all about thee, for thou art special.
8) Yea, even as a pastor in the far, strange land of Houston, thou mayest discriminate and deny service as thou liketh not, and even claim that discrimination existeth not, except against poor, little thee.
9) And lo! Even in thine extremities, thou mayest cry out in a great voice: "Why persecuteth thou me, thou bully? Yea, I am here the victim of thy bulliness, not thee of mine, for I bullieth not! Because I am special, and thou hatest me for it." Verily, it is easier for a swollen bag of specialness to go through the eye of a needle, than it is for someone who is not special to be treated like all others.
10) Thou are free to judge and denigrate as thou wisheth, and claim that the sins of those others somehow dirtieth thee and thy specialness, though thou participateth not in their sins, being only the delivery boy of flowers. Thou might even proclaim, against all opinion except thine, that thou art a special, important part of their affairs, though they know you not from Adam, and couldn't possibly care less than they already don't about thy beliefs. For they wanteth thy cake, and thy cake is indistinguishable from thy faith.
For THINE is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, not theirs, for didst thy Lord not proclaim that THOU ART SPECIAL?
Many Americans remain deeply ignorant of what the Republican party really stands for.
Many white Evangelicals remain deeply ignorant of what they and their churches actually support.
Many religious people assume that religion equals morality.
Some of America's most prominent Christians demonstrate the disconnect between religion and morality on a daily basis.
And a LOT of them – mega-preachers, especially – exploit that disconnect for their own enrichment. Yet very rarely do they get called on it.
Now THERE is some REAL indoctrination!
I came across something last night. Hard work became a virtue and money became the way to measure how pleased god was with your hard work. Jerod Henderson (https://www.youtube.com/@_jared) came out with a video (The Protestant Work Ethic) on Nebula last week talking about this. I don't know if/when he'll release it on YouTube.
I highly recommend Nebula, it's my default place to go. It's smaller than YouTube, but no commercials, great content (no video comments, use reddit), free speech without the race to the bottom, they aren't constantly hit with copyright bans designed to squash free speech, and it's content creator owned. They also support their creators more ambitious endeavors, like John de Lancie appearing in IDENTITEAZE.
I’m not sure polls are useful any more. They don’t reach much of the electorate. No pollster has called my cellphone since I went wireless in 2004 (and none of them called my landline before that). Then the people constructing these polls manipulate the data to get what they want.
Sad to say, you may be right. Problem is, is anyone really minding the pollsters?
Of course not why do you think they continue to emit worthless drivel.
Yes the republicans flooded the media with highly slanted polls to confuse and distort the political landscape in 2024.
That last item – religion supposedly equaling morality – may be the single biggest sticking point we have to face. Hitchens remarked about it more than once, wishing that the idea of faith as a virtue could be removed from society.
But it's been stuck there a while, and social inertia is damned slow to change.
That idea has been stuck there since the Church gained the power of the State to enforce it -- about 17 centuries. That's a LOT of social inertia to overcome.
It's not simply religion. It's the underlying CAUSE of religion: faith!
That's the process by which people arrive at conclusions for which there isn’t a lick of supporting evidence, and frequently lots of evidence to the contrary. It’s the root process behind not only religion but also quackery, homeopathy, astrology, levitation, mind-reading, palm-reading, objectivism, ufology, conspiracy theories, imperialism, racism, sexism, climate-change denial, ritual satanic child abuse, numerology, acupuncture, anti-vax movements, perpetual motion, dowsing, personality cults, jingoism, Chinese traditional “medicine”, feng shui, reincarnation, a host of superstitions, and the insidious brain parasite that leads people to endlessly obsess over anyone named Kardashian.
Faith is the real culprit here. Religion is just one of its many unfortunate consequences. The sooner we all recognize faith for the awful, horrible, misbegotten thing it is, instead of blindly singing its praises, the sooner we will have taken the next step in our journey to becoming a sane society.
A teacher of philosophy at Portland State (I think) said that faith is 'pretending to know something you don't know'.
People say that "My faith is an important part of my life". Translate that to "Pretending to know something I don't know is an important part of my life" makes it sound so very ridiculous.
Paraphrasing Twain: Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.
I can agree with you about virtually everything in your list, except two: acupuncture and dowsing. I’ve had enough experience with acupuncture to believe two things:
1) it can work spectacularly well. It can also work not at all.
2) how well it works depends upon the talent of the acupuncturist, much the same as Chiropractic. I’ve seen six acupuncturists. One was absolutely superb, one (my current one) is fairly good, and the other four were about as useful as a tits on a bull. One of them I considered to be actually dangerous.
I’ve had a recurring problem with tendinitis in my left arm. My regular MD gave me a set of exercises, told me to do them every day, and hopefully in about three months the problem will be resolved. The acupuncturist treated me twice, and the problem disappeared for about a year. She treated me again about a year later, and that also worked spectacularly well.
I don’t know why acupuncture seems to work. I agree that the basis for it is reasonably silly, pardon the oxymoron. But there is something happening there, and that I cannot dismiss. I’m a very rational guy.
Regarding dowsing: I absolutely agree that most of it is Quackery. However, my husband’s father was a wasserhexe. He demonstrated his talent conclusively to me. There is no way that he could have faked it, nor would he have any reason to. He was known in his village as a reliable wasserhexe. The last time I told the story, I was given several scientific explanations as to why it was a hoax. Not one of those explanations applied as far as I could tell.
Didn’t acupuncture originate in China or maybe India? Chinese medicine is gentler on the system than western medicine. However one might choose western medicine in an emergency.
Acupuncture is Chinese in origin. It’s actually fairly ancient. I have absolutely no idea why it works, except that it seems to be tied to the talent of the practitioner. My first acupuncturist, the really fabulous one, also believed a great deal in traditional Chinese medicine. I thought myself that it was pretty worthless. She taught my current acupuncturist, but the two times I tried that traditional Chinese medicine with her, let us just say it didn’t work for me.
You might be thinking of ayuravedic medicine, which is Indian in origin.
Your list is long. It seems you’ve given this a lot of thought. Speaking of faith without evidence, Faith is not based on evidence but the things unseen.
Do you mean it’s based on stuff that isn’t there.
An irrational belief in the improbable.
Sherlock Holmes said, “once you eliminate the impossible, the remainder, however improbable, is most likely true.”
He obviously never met a modern Christian.
No
Faith in hope
Unseen, yes. Also unheard, unfelt, unsmelled, untasted, and unsensed in any other way, coming down to one overall adjective that sums it all up: unbelievable.
I so agree with you Richard. A belief system is created by man. It is not a reality. Man chooses to have faith in a belief system. That belief system becomes his reality. Then man wants to impose his choice of faith on others. Then they demand (dogma) their faith become your reality. Belief is not reality. It is just that, a belief!
I often make the point that faith is a vice when I'm on other fora.
Culture conditioning is huge but invisible to most of us living in the Bible Belt. It colors everything. When I was a teenager I moved from TX to Colorado. It was a very delightful culture shock. Somehow decisions brought me back to TX. Sigh!
I'll admit, there are things (a lot of things) that I didn't know.
Conservatism came about from the collapse of the monarchies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CI2vk3ugk). It was created to keep the classist, elitist status quo going. There are people on top, and the masses on the bottom who exist solely to serve their betters.
Prior to that, the "big picture" I held was conservatism was about preserving society as is, and liberalism was about finding better ways of doing things. Conservativism prevented liberalism from rushing headlong into mistakes, and liberalism prevented society from stagnating. Whatever the outcome, society progressed (a friend pointed out that many conservative positions today were once liberal, like women voting - though that may no longer remain the case). Boy, was I ignorant.
The one factor left out in all of this is money. As Cindy Lauper sings, "Money changes everything."
Quibble, but the US Republican party didn't start out that way. It was formed to oppose the Democrats on slavery: the Republicans were the liberals who wanted it ended immediately, everywhere. The Dems were the conservatives who wanted to take a slower approach. Thus, why Lincoln was a Republican.
The GOP didn't get captured by social conservatives until sometime between the late 1800s and early 1900s. The early 20th century robber barons took it over. It's been conservative ever since.
Can I add a (little) quibble? I would not call the Republican Party conservative, they fit the description of ‘reactionary’. At least the definition I learned in history class.
Whenever you don't see a reason for something being the way it is, the usual answer is money.
Or power which is essentially the same thing.
No one in their right mind would want to replace the American Republic with a Christian theocracy. Unfortunately, the people not in their right minds keep trying to get government to backstop their world view, in order to accomplish what they have failed to achieve from their pulpits. Never under estimate a determined minority. The idea religion can be forced on people with a happy ending is about as dangerous as thinking gets.
𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑎𝑑𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑜 𝑏𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑝 𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠.
Honestly, I'm not convinced of that. Earlier in the article, Hemant mentioned people out there who think the bible should influence our laws. I would bet that those same people have no idea HOW it should have an impact on a system that is supposed to be secular and without taint of anything religious. We're talking about a FEELING here, a feeling which comes out of IGNORANCE, paired with the childhood Christian indoctrination that too many of us have been through and too many have failed to get shut of.
I can't escape the suspicion that, when Trump's comeuppance finally arrives (hope-hope-hope!), the overall sense will be that it was Trump's behavior that was problematic and not Christian nationalism ... UNLESS the news media starts emphasizing the part Christian nationalism has had on his administration. What we need it the informed electorate which James Madison spoke of as being necessary to a free state.
And that is one hell of a big honking ask ... and I'm not certain that this country is up to it.
They have no idea how bad things are under a theocratic rule. They don't think they would be among the one who be impacted and they are wrong.
Of course. The leopard won't eat THEIR faces, will he? 😖 🤦♂️
They think they are the leopards. While the leopards sit back and laugh at their ignorance.
And smacking their lips in antici-------------------------PATION!
Let's do the time warp again!
Hiya, I was hoping that I’d be bumping into you: I was thinking of you the other day, hope it went well.
Sending you a hug.
Cx
Whatever the problem with my ankle is, I hope it still treatable.
I somewhat agree. Not sure about the Christianity stuff - I think future SCOTUSes will roll back much of the idiocy of this court - but for example when Reagan cut the top tax bracket from 70% down to 35%, it never went back up. I think Trump's cuts to federal offices and functions will outlast him. To the extent he is able to reduce health care and federal services, demolish the fire service, FEMA, etc., etc.... these things won't recover. It'll be like that forever: his legacy will be a smaller, less capable federal government.
As it comes to taxes, I'd be dubious that the top tax bracket will EVER go back up. It's bad optics, never mind clichéd: "Headline: DEMOCRATS RAISE TAXES!" [sigh] We won't mention that the high tax rates post-WWII didn't hurt post-war growth in the US very much if at all. Worse, the monied lobbyists who represent billion-dollar corporations will scream bloody murder if those rates EVER go up again.
And the real hell of it is, we're talking about a model that WORKED. Granted it was 60+ years ago, and some modifications are likely necessary, but IT WORKED and for everyone.
Which suggests that those pushing against higher taxes are more interested in things that work for THEMSELVES than they are in the public at large.
Can I suggest that you look out @thom Hartmann? He writes a lot about such issues. Very knowledgeable.
https://hartmannreport.com/
It's not just taxes. OTA is an example of an agency that got it's budget zeroed out because Republicans didn't like it, and it's never come back either. We will be left with a smaller, sh****er government. Not because of the people - I have great respect for them - but simply because of the work we expect the government to do will become drastically larger than what it is able to do. You can have best firefighters in the world, but if you cut their number in half, more fires rage out of control. That's the situation we're going to be in soon with the government - both literally (Trump *literally* cut wildland firefighter jobs) and figuratively (all the metaphorical fires that the USG manages, won't be managed as well).
It seems to me that the 6% Christian Nazionalist figure would jump much higher if the respondents were categorized that way for answering yes to three of the four questions. My preacher brother would definetely give a yes to two of the questions, probably yes to three, but hesitate on one. He would likely answer no to the first, since he knows there are "true" Americans that aren't Christian. But, it is definitely important to him that his country's leader shares his faith. I have asked him this directly. He also believes that the Bible should influence the law, and it would not surprise me if he felt that the Bible should take precedence in cases where it conflicts with the law, at least in some circumstances.
For me, someone is a Christian Nazionalist if they believe a: the US was founded as a Christian Nation, and b: it must "return" to that.
"Should we close our borders to asylum seekers?"
The biblical god himself gives his avowed followers clear instructions on how to treat foreigners in their own beloved Leviticus (Chapter 19, Verses 33 through 34 to be precise). It says foreigners should NOT be mistreated; that they are to be treated as native-born and loved.
Maybe this scripture should be shoved in the faces of those who think Trump is the Second Coming.
They don't like the taste of that particular cherry.
Was there not also a situation where Jesus asked his followers to be nice to strangers (refugees)?
I might be wrong here, but I didn’t think that he had flying them to Panama and Guantanamo in mind.
He talked about inviting strangers in. The followers who did got to go to heaven. The followers who didn’t got sent to the other place.
Here’s hoping: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3304a79e776f80240495a708aa08a158e766ef0e064c3a51587e84f0585ed5cf.jpg
Because ours is now a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires for the billionaires.
Religion is just a usefulk tool to subjugate the religious.
Don’t you mean the gullible and stupid.
That would be redundant.
The billionaires probably don’t think the laws affect them.
Probably because they don't.
There are many ways the US government does not represent the will of the US people. Christian Nationalism is one of the most dangerous ways.
The USA has been fighting a quiet coup for my lifetime, and likely before. The gerrymandering and manipulation of the polls have always put the minority in charge. The moneyed interests have turned decent politicians into corrupt bastards. The current state is only the inevitable result of the decades of trickle down economics and citizens united. They’ve been successful in dumbing down America so that the people don’t know what is happening on Capitol Hill and they don’t care until it is burning down their towns. The people are confused about what is communism, capitalism and socialism. Perfectly illustrated by MTG’s comments about corporate communism, and her lackeys’ eating it up as if she’s brilliant for coming up with it.
Well, now the coup is finally successful and playing out in real time, with real lives, dead airline passengers, destitute federal workers, and senior citizens wasting away from neglect. That’s only what is happening up to today, it is only going to get worse. Our government has not represented the population for fifty plus years. Christian Nationalism is only one aspect.
"because, as we’ve seen so many times in the past month, what the hell can anyone do to stop it?"
That's the scariest part of all. We can see our country headed for the cliff, and the Christian Nationalists have cut the brake lines.
I fear that Drumpf and the Republicans may very well manufacturer a national emergency to justify the suspension of the upcoming midterm elections and the ultimate suspension of all elections. Remember that he has told his supporters that if they elected him that they wouldn't have to vote again.
If Biden had done a fraction of the things that Trump has done, both the GQP and the mainstream media would be screaming for the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
Their reaction to Trump doing these things? Crickets.
It's as if they don't care about the actions, only that it's 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 guy doing it. Fucking hypocrites.
The GQP and the mainstream press don't seem to having any trouble hoisting a double standard in battle.
You probably don’t know him, but there is a radio host on LBC, called James O’Brien. He called it ‘footballification’. Meaning that you approve of EVERYTHING your team does. Even if they do tge same thing which you were hopping mad about a couple of days ago when someone else (ie the other lot) did it.
This one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Brien_(broadcaster)
Yes!
It is all about ratings and clicks, that why the media isn’t doing much about. Bad news brings in more money. Unless Trump does something that might affect the media organization bottom line, like preventing AP from Air Force One because AP refuses to follow Trump’s order about the Gulf. Of Mexico.
Step 1 of Fascism: Normalize the unthinkable.
DictatorForADayShow.com
They're too afraid if being jailed.
May be time for them to get out of the biz, then. They’re no damn good as suck-ups.
Waiting for ̶G̶o̶d̶o̶t̶ The Enabling Act.
At a West Palm Beach rally, IIRC. And not one of the gathered MAGAts questioned him. They didn't even act fazed. They just cheered and applauded.
The other bad news is that they've just scratched the surface at this point. There are MANY, MANY ways it can become worse -- and we're marching toward them day by day.
MY Senators & Congresswoman are "good guys," but it never hurts to reiterate my favorite Religious Doctrine -- the ABSOLUTE SEPARATION of Church & State.
They'll all get an email reminder regarding religious freedom today.
Once people convince themselves they are operating under divine sanction, there isn't much they can't justify.
Christian leaders have misled their followers to equate Christianity with patriotism. As a result, many evangelicals identify as patriots when they are in fact Christian Nationalists, and not have responded to the survey as pro-Christian Nationalist.
Religions are non-democratic by design, therefore fundamentalist Christians are inclined to submit to authoritarian leadership in their faith or politics.
Religion. What a MINDFUCK it really is. #Taxthechurches
God's listening, ya know....
Yes but, is the old guy wearing his hearing aids?
Why should the bible or Christianity have any say in running this country when their recorded history is so horrific?
And we can say the same thing about the other two Abrahamic faiths. The monogod has meant endless cruelty and suffering. A plague upon it.
Right!! My first podcastast week spoke on this topic and explained why they do and how religion has and still does damage the world.
Can a plague have the plague?
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It's the same way cancel culture (every side does it) affects TV shows, movies, beer drinking, and speakers. Capitalistic newstainment means we'll pay attention to the loudest voices. Even Disney is affected by this, despite being "family friendly" and also have "gay day." (Think about it. Who is more likely to pay to stay at your exorbitant resort? A couple with 4 kids, or a gay couple with dual male incomes and no children?)
America might only have 6% christian nationalists, but...
1. they are the loudest whiners
2. christian tribalism means the masses will support them, even if they don't agree with parts of it (they don't understand how package deals work - if you buy a car for the heated seats and it also gets 4mpg, not liking the low mpg doesn't mean you didn't buy a car with low gas mileage)
3. They control the gov't
4. They're good at PR - the left is a mess because they are diverse. Disparate groups that don't stand with each other ("Not my fight." Only until it is.)
5. Frequency of exposure is important. The more you're exposed to something the greater weight the mind gives to it. Three people "detransition" and go on the pundit circuit, not b/c they're concerned, but b/c it's lucrative. Less than 1% of transpeople are dissatisfied with transitioning. 14% (1 in 7) regret getting heart surgery. 17% regret getting hip/knee replacement surgery. Where is the crusade to stop these surgeries? I have yet to meet a single conservative person who ever looked up or is aware of these numbers. There might be an odd unicorn out there that does, but then, they're probably already not a conservative.
Gay Day isn't an official Disney event.
But they do put out a pretty good selection of Disney-themed Pride merchandise starting in mid-May. I got some great rainbow-themed StarWars merch when I went for my 50th.
Yep, green is their favorite color.
A couple of points..
“ If we can get out of this Republican term in one piece, those supposed “Christian values” are going to be blamed for all kinds of unnecessary cruelty. Or at least they should be if the rest of us are effective communicators.”
No, I don’t think so. You can pit a an effective communicator who argues with facts, logic, and experience, against the tribalistic religious bigot, a person who believes everything that they think and questions none of it, And that effective communicator will get precisely nowhere. You cannot reason with people who have no interest in being reasoned with.
And Hemant provides the support for this with this comment: “ Different Christian believers may answer that in different ways, but the conservative Christians in the government always respond by choosing the path that causes the most harm and chaos, even though specific policies like those are rejected by vast majorities of American people.”
Why do they do that? Because it’s fun. Because it reassures them that they are powerful and they matter. It Reassures them that they are better people than they obviously are. Even their moms and their dads, even their heavenly fathers, agree with them.
The issue to me is one of moral corruption. I’ve written about this many times before, especially in relationship to Trump and the Christian right. When aids first made its appearance some 40 years ago, and far too many beautiful and wonderful young men were dying, these so-called Qhristians were having a ball talking about filth and just desserts, ginning up hate and calling it love, morality, godliness. Look at Ted Haggard: drugged fueled orgies with male hookers while proclaiming his holiness and the filth of gay men; that is not merely hypocrisy, that is blind corruption on a grand scale. The antiabortion types loved showing huge photos of bloody body parts; it took me decades to finally realize that they weren’t just making a point, they were getting off on it. I remember General William westMoreland Proudly proclaiming that Vietnamese don’t have the same sensitive feelings towards their families that we white people do, and so it really wasn’t a great tragedy if we were killing them off. Those were not his exact words, of course, but I’m too lazy to look them up.
This is something I wrote 10 years ago. It was entirely prophetic, and you can also send me money to pay for my prophecies.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF ASSHOLERY:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, if thou wisheth to be truly assholier than all:
1) Thou shalt not do anything for those thou hast righteously determined to be thy moral and spiritual inferiors, for thou seeeth truly, despite the very forest of logs in thine own eye.
2) Thou shalt not be required to treat others as you would like to be treated, because those others are truly extra double icky sinners, and thou art not. Thou art special.
3) Yea, thou must always remembereth the day of thine extra double specialness, and keep it assholy. For all days are the days of thy specialness. Thou hast a stone, and may Throw it however thou wilt.
4) It mattereth not that that you happily serve others who rejecteth some of your beliefs, yea, or even unto the entirety of them, because those that thou despiseth fain would challenge only thy beliefs about THEM, not the beliefs thou sayest truly matter. And thou needst not beareth that iniquity. For they are truly not thine equals, as humans, as people of faith, or as citizens. For art thou not special?
5) Yea, though thou walketh through the valley of the shadow of non discrimination laws, whether for religion or sexual orientation, thou needst not render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. For what knoweth Caesar about thy specialness? And if Caesar maketh of thee an exception of the law because of thy specialness, and maketh a mockery of the laws that sayeth thou art not special, doth it not prove that thou art special?
6) Know you not truly, that everything, everywhere and always, is about thee? Yea, even unto the baking of sweet things, and the provision of flowers? For thou art special, and common courtesy, even unto the common ways of successful merchants, is lesser than thy specialness. Pay it no heed, lest thy specialness be hidden under a bushel.
7) Surely, surely, thou mayst discriminate as thou wilt, and sayeth thou with the straightest of faces that those whom thou despiseth are not being discriminated against. For it is, indeed, all about thee, for thou art special.
8) Yea, even as a pastor in the far, strange land of Houston, thou mayest discriminate and deny service as thou liketh not, and even claim that discrimination existeth not, except against poor, little thee.
9) And lo! Even in thine extremities, thou mayest cry out in a great voice: "Why persecuteth thou me, thou bully? Yea, I am here the victim of thy bulliness, not thee of mine, for I bullieth not! Because I am special, and thou hatest me for it." Verily, it is easier for a swollen bag of specialness to go through the eye of a needle, than it is for someone who is not special to be treated like all others.
10) Thou are free to judge and denigrate as thou wisheth, and claim that the sins of those others somehow dirtieth thee and thy specialness, though thou participateth not in their sins, being only the delivery boy of flowers. Thou might even proclaim, against all opinion except thine, that thou art a special, important part of their affairs, though they know you not from Adam, and couldn't possibly care less than they already don't about thy beliefs. For they wanteth thy cake, and thy cake is indistinguishable from thy faith.
For THINE is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, not theirs, for didst thy Lord not proclaim that THOU ART SPECIAL?
Amen. Let us prey.
Very, very true. They do not believe in or care about anything that doesn't fit their brainwashed narratives.