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spdrun.
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July 27, 2016 at 5:43 PM #800053July 28, 2016 at 8:40 AM #800058
njtosd
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=njtosd][quote=FlyerInHi]Nytosd, I don’t have scaredy’ talent of saying things with few words. Plus typing on smartphone is not very convenient.
I’m trying to say that conservatives like claim that that blacks are rightfully targeted because of the way they act. Conservatives are now so openly disfunctionally trashy that they are hardly recognizable as conservatives. Right there, there’s no equivalence with the democrats.
“We” are intelligent people. For example, in international relations, the Russians and Chinese like to say they are equivalent to the USA. Not at all. Any attempt at moral equivalence should be laughed off and ridiculed.
Compare the platforms The ideas are not even remotely morally equivalent. Examples are gay marriage and abortion which are settled issues. Republicans espouse retrograde positions of returning back in time.
As far as Jesus, religious people are rigid and start with the premise that God exists; and that everyone else must consider that God does exist. Right there, conservatives act entitled to an asymmetric advantage. The center and reasonable position should be “there is no God until he shows up” The extreme position in fact is the conviction in God.[/quote]
Again, odd and disjointed.
As far as intelligence goes, you’re just getting back to the “liberals are all things good and conservatives are all things bad.” I’ve known many whip smart conservatives and liberals. There were two guys that I used to work with who were on opposite ends of the political spectrum (but were friends – can you believe it??) and both made impressive arguments for their sides.
Do you know that Depeche Mode was a band from the 1980s? I wasn’t referring to Jesus in the traditional sense of the the word. Christians do not each have a personal Jesus – He’s a shared resource. It sounds like maybe you need to read up a bit.
I’m giving up on this one because you seem to have floated off into a particularly bizarre direction. Enjoy yourself.
PS – Dysfunctionally trashy sound like they aren’t very good at being trashy. Is that what you meant? 😉 And what are these people recognizable as?[/quote]
i really love the depeche mode song. i can immediately here the catchy lick in my gead. but i started wondering, theologically, what are the implications of this song. this christianity today analysis of depeche mode resonated with me.
I have been trying to get my son to learn to play it on the guitar. My kids used to give me a hard time about my taste in music (especially Motown) but they are beginning to see the light. But I digress . . .
Sadly, it doesn’t seem that there was wasn’t much theology involved. The song was inspired by a book called “Elvis and Me”:
The song was inspired by the book Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley. According to songwriter Martin Gore:
It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It’s about how Elvis Presley was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?
In terms of the secular invading the sacred – I have to say that I have never understood the idea of a “personal relationship with Jesus” and never heard it discussed until the 1990s (I think). It seemed to show up around the time of the rise of “born again” Christians (now that I think of it, where did they go?) – but maybe there’s no relationship. It sounds vaguely wrong to me from a lot of perspectives – but particularly because it sounds kind of grabby, which I would think contradicts basic Christian values.
July 28, 2016 at 8:41 AM #800059FlyerInHi
Guest[quote=harvey]You’re both wrong.
Any argument based on the notion that everyone fits nicely into thought groups like ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ – and that membership in these groups is mutually exclusive – is just lame.[/quote]
Depends on the context. If we’re taking about society, we have to make generalizations. When the comments are positive, everyone is happy. When the comments are negative, some people will declare “how dare you? You don’t know me. We are all different”. Exactly, we are all individuals, and not all the same; but nobody is judging individuals; we are making general observations.
It’s important not to conflate individual cases to trends we observe. On police abuse, sure, each case should be investigated and adjudicated separately. But we now know for a fact that police abuse is more prevalent than we were led to believe. It’s perfectly normal to call for reform of policing as a whole.
Is it fair to say that liberals want police reform and conservatives want the status quo ante all the cameras? I think generally, yes.
July 28, 2016 at 8:51 AM #800060GuestI had to look up the song. I’m really bad at music and never listen to the lyrics.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/depechemode/personaljesus.html
July 28, 2016 at 11:11 AM #800061Anonymous
Guest[quote=FlyerInHi]Is it fair to say that liberals want police reform and conservatives want the status quo ante all the cameras? I think generally, yes.[/quote]
The point was that there really are no liberals and there are no conservatives. Only shades of grey with no delimiters.
Of course some people self-identify into these groups and they are free to do that. If one wants to call themselves a liberal or conservative I’m not going to dispute the label they give themselves.
Political debate can be worthwhile when we focus on issues and candidates.
Making generalizations about arbitrarily-defined groups is counter productive.
July 28, 2016 at 11:20 AM #800062dumbrenter
Participant[quote=harvey][quote=zk]That ruse, as I’ve said on this forum before, is one of the most brilliant strokes of propaganda in the history of American propaganda.[/quote]
Absolutely.
Ironically it was information technology that enabled the ignorance. It started with cable television in the 1980s. With effectively unlimited TV channels piped into every home in America, big media could customize channels to particular viewpoints. Viewers only watched the news channels that reported what they wanted to hear. Journalists no longer had to be balanced to reach a broad audience.
And then the internet took it many steps further.
Fox News, Limbaugh and the rest saw this opportunity and capitalized on it, big time.
Brilliant and sinister.[/quote]
As was predicted by Bradbury.
Technology is awesome. It makes normal shitheads into super shitheads.July 28, 2016 at 12:55 PM #800063Guest[quote=harvey]
Political debate can be worthwhile when we focus on issues and candidates.Making generalizations about arbitrarily-defined groups is counter productive.[/quote]
I agree.
But it’s hard to focus on issues because of partisan noise. For example, about police abuse, one may say “we have a problem and need to come up with reform solutions.” We know that’s a problem to solve.
But then we get pushback like “what about black on black crime?”, “what about teenage pregnancies and absent fathers?”, “what about blue lives?’. That’s a way to minimize and dismiss a legitimate concern. So it is useful to understand the sociology of why people resist whenever there’s a call for reform and advancement, from slavery to universal suffrage, to civil rights, to gay marriage, and police abuse today.
The reality is that we humans are creative. We can work on solving different issues simultaneously. Black lives matter, and blue lives matter at the same time.
July 28, 2016 at 1:31 PM #800064
Rich ToscanoKeymaster[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=harvey]
Political debate can be worthwhile when we focus on issues and candidates.Making generalizations about arbitrarily-defined groups is counter productive.[/quote]
I agree.
[/quote]You cannot be serious…
July 28, 2016 at 2:38 PM #800065GuestThe media wants us to associate the issue with the party with the group.
That arrangement is better for marketing.
Nobody would watch the “healthcare issues” channel or the “national security costs and risks” channel.
But many watch the “conservative” channel and many of the rest watch the “liberal” channel.
July 28, 2016 at 2:44 PM #800066Rich ToscanoKeymaster[quote=harvey]The media wants us to associate the issue with the party with the group.
That arrangement is better for marketing.
Nobody would watch the “healthcare issues” channel or the “national security costs and risks” channel.
But many watch the “conservative” channel and many of the rest watch the “liberal” channel.[/quote]
It’s better for marketing, and dovetails very nicely with the strong human tendency towards tribalism.
July 28, 2016 at 6:31 PM #800067Participant[quote=harvey]You’re both wrong.
Any argument based on the notion that everyone fits nicely into thought groups like ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ – and that membership in these groups is mutually exclusive – is just lame.[/quote]
I think it probably works as well as other dichotomies, such as extrovert/introvert feeling/thinking or the other Myers Briggs categories. Yes, we are all as different as snowflakes but generalities seem to be accepted by those who study these issues. I thought this one was interesting: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce-political-wars/
July 28, 2016 at 6:53 PM #800069Rich ToscanoKeymaster[quote=njtosd]
I think it probably works as well as other dichotomies, such as extrovert/introvert feeling/thinking or the other Myers Briggs categories. [/quote]I don’t agree with that because, taking introvert vs extrovert for example, it’s just a linear spectrum between two extremes regarding one issue.
“Conservative” vs. “liberal” means a million different things, depending on what issue you are talking about… that’s why it’s useless to argue based on “teams” as seems to be peoples’ general tendency. Each issue should be debated on its own merits, not what two (just two, for a million issues!!) teams think about it.
I think the Scientific American article is cool and the thing about innate tendencies sure seems plausible. But I do not agree that “liberal” vs “conservative” is anything like a single topic, linear spectrum such as “introvert” vs. “extrovert.”
July 29, 2016 at 10:13 AM #800078zk
Participant[quote=Rich Toscano][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=harvey]
Political debate can be worthwhile when we focus on issues and candidates.Making generalizations about arbitrarily-defined groups is counter productive.[/quote]
I agree.
[/quote]You cannot be serious…[/quote]
Yeah, that gave me a laugh, too.
July 29, 2016 at 10:45 AM #800081Guest[quote=Rich Toscano][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=harvey]
Political debate can be worthwhile when we focus on issues and candidates.Making generalizations about arbitrarily-defined groups is counter productive.[/quote]
I agree.
[/quote]You cannot be serious…[/quote]
Haha.. That’s funny. Harvey is right, focusing on issues and productively engaging with other parties is very appropriate when at the negotiation table. That’s going high and when others go low. Very admirable.
However, we are often just observers and commentators of current events and we reflect what’s playing out in real life.
Incidentally, some people believe that engagement is weak; and the we should always insist on superiority. There’s some truth to that because some ideas are just superior, especially with regards to human rights.
July 29, 2016 at 11:12 AM #800082Guest[quote=harvey]The media wants us to associate the issue with the party with the group.
That arrangement is better for marketing.
Nobody would watch the “healthcare issues” channel or the “national security costs and risks” channel.
But many watch the “conservative” channel and many of the rest watch the “liberal” channel.[/quote]
Harvey, again I agree with you.
I’m curious what you think on tv is the liberal equivalent to Fox News. Is there equivalence or asymmetry as was posited by zk’s right-wing noise machine comment earlier?
More interestingly, since the topic is anger, how do we define the anger in our population? Not to objectively discuss issues or come up with solutions but simply as sociological observations.
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