what's your political 'attitude' nowadays?

[RomaVicta 29794]

12 hours ago, aggie08 said:

This man believes these things. Like in his bones. Cheney and co. "played nice." It was the left who tarnished McCain's legacy. You almost have to admire the willful "head in the sand" myopia.

Can there possibly exist a better example of irony-deafness than Sack's post? The GOP was a romanticized memory of Buckley who suggested that AIDS patients undergo a required tatoo on their buttocks to warn others. He wasn't innocent in the transformation of the GOP after Nixon's Southern Strategy.

To steal from another: the GOPs look at Reagan's image and believe that's who they are. A look at Trump's reveals exactly what they've become.

Even so, I also pos repped Sack for responding. His historical account is absurd, but he's not lying about how he sees history. It's as astonishing as it is absurd.

[Brisketexan 104628]

4 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

I'm about here

 

 

"About?"

[Paul Wesley 3277]

18 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

They can't really even attempt to solve a problem because:

1. They've campaigned for decades that government cannot do anything good

I think every R vs D political discussion needs this reminder.  When you start off with Reagan's "Government *is* the problem," it gets tricky to address even the most profoundly broken systems that provide basic elements of government.  e.g. healthcare, a stable power grid.

[Michael Knight 12898]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

To be honest, unless there is a significant ground shift, Don Jr. would probably crush Romney. 

 

[RomaVicta 29794]

12 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Seems like the Obama/Romney debate exchange is just a political ad waiting to happen. If you need an Orange Man one to round the universe, go with Helsinki. If I was GOP I would do everything in my power to put Romney in position as the primary candidate and try to clear the deck of the scrubs. 

 

 

I only choose this post as an example of some others.

If Mitt got the GOP nomination he'd win in a landslide? So would Kamala Harris or Adam Schiff. None of these three people are Trumpists. Did Mitt make a lot of GЯP friends by voting to convict Trump? I'd be surprised if that were true.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Forget Joltin' Joe and Mitt. They're no longer in the league. You're hedging your belief in the GЯP being somehow virtuous by holding up a pariah as the example. It's a lie. A sweet lie, I suppose, but a lie.

It would be the same with a reincarnated Lincoln. He wouldn't have anything to do with the party he helped found.

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by RomaVicta
Another post too late. Point already made.

[RomaVicta 29794]

11 hours ago, bolverk said:

Show us that 10-item scale of political values.

Excellent point. I read back in the '80s that these polls always included abortion which, of course, has little to do with political philosophy. It was the key "item" in painting the press as liberal. There other similar questions as well that would not reflect on news reporting bias.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

17 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

I'm about here

 

 

i thought it was great he did that.  there is big pressure to do the jumpy clappy laughy thing that everyone else does to make the show seem fun.  it took some real lucidity to immediately recognize it was over the line and bail.

[RomaVicta 29794]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Anastasis is a pile of shitmucus, but he ain't wrong about this.

The GQP is only going to move in one direction: batshittier, Trumpier.  Stop thinking of it as a political party, and start thinking of it as a cult, run and manipulated to serve its sociopathic leaders, manned by a mixed crew of the mentally ill, stupid and gullible, and depraved and greedy.  Imagine "what would a cult do?" and you can 100% predict every move the "party" makes.

It's a cult with guns and itchy trigger fingers.

We're just here to help!

Ladies and gentlemen, the darling of the Trump Party.If we anti-Trumpers take up the same tactics, what happens? If we don't, what happens? We lay our slim hopes at the feet of the Dept. of Justice.

The results so far are not promising.

[RomaVicta 29794]

1 hour ago, Johnny Sack said:

I said there are socialist Dem heavyweights and thought leaders.  AOC, Sanders, Tlaib, Cori Bush.

Are these individuals, who are members of the Democrat Socialists of America, not party heavyweights and thought leaders?

You think Bernie Sanders would have had a snowball's chance in hell of being a serious primary contender 20 years ago?  Or 30 years ago?

I looked it up. You're right. She's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. (Just how Aggie has the GOP gone that they cleave to leaving out the "ic" in the way that Aggies refuse to capitalize UT or TU?)

I think you and your kind are going for a Red Scare vibe: good for the hate and fear addiction. Here's the plain definition from Wiki:

Quote

Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that supports political democracy within a socially owned economy,[1] with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management[2] within a market socialist economy, or an alternative form of decentralised planned socialist economy.[3] Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality, and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society.[4] Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism,[5] democratic socialism can support either revolutionary or reformist politics as means to establish socialism.[6] 

That's not Soviet communism and it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as a valid political viewpoint. Raw market capitalism needs to be challenged and brought to rein or you get robber barons making fortunes on trains that run off the tracks, rivers where fish can't live, and workers' share of profit kept at a sustenance level.

I'm not a socialist. I'm also not technically a Dem. I'll take a good idea anywhere I can get it.

I won't dogmatic close my mind at the sound of a word that opinion leaders willfully distort as something inherently evil. You know, like a cult might do.

Edited April 21, 2022 by RomaVicta
Again, somebody beats me to the punch. I become a parrot.

[RomaVicta 29794]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

On issues such as "support a violent fascist overthrow of the government," and "support right-wing legislatures being able to cancel out the popular vote and declare their chosen candidate the winner," the polling shows that these are winning positions among the American "right."

Every other issue is just details.  Any party that supports fascist overthrow of the government and voiding the vote of the people is so far right as to be off the scale.  That's the issue the johnnys of the world want to skip right past, when in reality, it's literally the only issue that matters.  No policy debate or difference matters if one side simply seizes power and imposes their will on the citizens.

Well said. Probably for hundredth time. It's like we keep trying to find the password to open a computer, but nothing works. I'm reminded of the messaging discussion earlier. It's all out there. It's pretty obvious. None of them care.

[Gourmand 7774]

23 hours ago, horn4life said:

My political attitude is about the same as it's been since my mid 20's.  Fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

During that time the GOP went from a fiscally conservative party with a libertarian lean, to a party of fiscal stupidity and downright dangerous to democracy.  The Dems unfortunately have been shot in the foot repetitively by the left wing of their party.

Please elaborate and show your work because from my perspective as a lifelong leftist, the bolded is nonsense and factually untrue. What has the left wing been repeatedly wrong about since, oh say, the Reagan administration? It isn't "the left" shooting the Democratic Party in the foot, it's the spineless centrist cretins who perpetuate anti-progressive pro-Republican talking points about their own political allies in the name of winning over the approval of corporate media hacks like Tim Russert and Chuck Todd. It's a shame so many have bought into these lies about the left when the left has proven right time and time again on the issues that matter. 

[wildcat09 29258]

16 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

This is how the game has to be played now. We'll still have the old guard fantasizing about magically returning to the days of William F. Buckley calmly debating his foes, regaling everyone with his well-reasoned soliloquys, but those days are gone (and I wish to hell that they weren't). There's no playing nice anymore. GWB tried to play nice and spent 8 years getting called Hitler (and that was when the left was 1/10th as vicious as they are now). McCain was the "maverick" who made his bones "reaching across the aisle," and the second he clinched the Republican nomination he became a racist old cancer patient who would personally use coat hangers to abort babies in back-alleys. Mitt Romney was practically a caricature of a moderate, temperate Northeastern old-school Republican who cared more about playing nice with the other side than actually advancing conservatism, and he got turned into an early-1900s robber baron who literally gave a man cancer. 

The only way now is to throw their own depravities back into their faces, call them the degenerate sickos that they are, and use every power you have to destroy them, because they'll sure do the same to you.

You're legitimately insane.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

It's a cult with guns and itchy trigger fingers.

We're just here to help!

Ladies and gentlemen, the darling of the Trump Party.If we anti-Trumpers take up the same tactics, what happens? If we don't, what happens? We lay our slim hopes at the feet of the Dept. of Justice.

The results so far are not promising.

A young man who was helping his community and shot three pieces of shit leftists who attacked him without justification.  He is zero risk to anyone except the pieces of shit you mourn that attacked him without provocation or justification.

[wildcat09 29258]

2 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

That’s because middle of the road Rs will cross over and vote them into office. Because outside of this boards hyperbole that every R is a nazi, the real world exists. 

This might be a grosser misrepresentation of recent history than Sack's "GWB was nice to Dems!" nonsense.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

10 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

You're legitimately insane.

All sorts of libs called Bush a racist Nazi when he was running for president after his successful term as a Texas governor.

[wildcat09 29258]

2 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

All sorts of libs called Bush a racist Nazi when he was running for president after his successful term as a Texas governor.

You've got the timing wrong on that, the allegations that he was a fascist started in the run up to the Iraq war. But more importantly, that's not what I was responding to, which was your claim that GWB tried to play nice with Dems. Karl Rove's ratfucking of Max Cleland was as disgusting and dirty as anything the modern GOP has done. Bush and Rove's swiftboating of Kerry was complete bullshit and was almost as disgusting. His presidency was just as threatening for gays as today's GOP. There's fucking hundreds of examples of Bush, his administration, and his campaigns saying and doing shit just as disgusting as most of what Trump is reviled for.

That's not even getting into what the GOP congress did.  When the GOP controlled Congress during Bush's presidency, they literally held hidden committee meetings they didn't even tell Democratic members about. When Dems dared to speak out a tiny bit against the idea of invading Iraq, child-fucker Dennis Hastert accused them of giving aid to the enemy. And of course there was the social environment post-9/11, when opposition actually got cancelled. The Dixie Chicks and Phil Donahue are the obvious examples, but the fear of speaking out against the invasion of Iraq was everywhere. 

And you want to pretend those were the days when the GOP was playing nice? Fuck you and your bullshit revisionist history.

[aggie08 21434]

3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Bush and Rove's swiftboating of Kerry was complete bullshit and was almost as disgusting.

Man, I bought that shit hook, line, and sinker. I was a fucking mark, no doubt. Looking back, I feel like that's where the discourse really started to change. Let's just repeat an easily refuted lie over and over, mix in some strong anti-American vibes, and it will eventually be accepted as truth.

[wildcat09 29258]

The idea that there was ever really a time in American politics that both sides got along and didn't say some pretty nasty shit about the other side is a complete myth. Politics has always been nasty.  There did used to be more guardrails around some certain rhetoric, but if anyone was the first to destroy them it was fucking W. 

I have to say though, that it is extremely funny for Mr. REEEEEE black crime stats to need a fainting couch every time he remembers Obama attacking Romney for his business practices, which was just using a company's own assets to buy it, fire its employees, and reward himself and his buddies with the "savings." In what world is attacking a candidate for that somehow out of bounds?

[Foosters 17734]

32 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

You've got the timing wrong on that, the allegations that he was a fascist started in the run up to the Iraq war. But more importantly, that's not what I was responding to, which was your claim that GWB tried to play nice with Dems. Karl Rove's ratfucking of Max Cleland was as disgusting and dirty as anything the modern GOP has done. Bush and Rove's swiftboating of Kerry was complete bullshit and was almost as disgusting. His presidency was just as threatening for gays as today's GOP. There's fucking hundreds of examples of Bush, his administration, and his campaigns saying and doing shit just as disgusting as most of what Trump is reviled for.

That's not even getting into what the GOP congress did.  When the GOP controlled Congress during Bush's presidency, they literally held hidden committee meetings they didn't even tell Democratic members about. When Dems dared to speak out a tiny bit against the idea of invading Iraq, child-fucker Dennis Hastert accused them of giving aid to the enemy. And of course there was the social environment post-9/11, when opposition actually got cancelled. The Dixie Chicks and Phil Donahue are the obvious examples, but the fear of speaking out against the invasion of Iraq was everywhere. 

And you want to pretend those were the days when the GOP was playing nice? Fuck you and your bullshit revisionist history.

Johnny is frantically searching for a bar graph with x and y axis "nice" and "time"

[horn4life 3755]

3 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

No democrat can tell you what a woman is -- Jesus Obama was anti gay marriage when he ran for President in 2008.  Democrats have unashamed socialists as party heavyweights and thought leaders.

Dems in Dallas, Harris and Travis counties have a real hard time winning any primary unless they are the right color or sex. 

It is either a straight up lie or self delusion to claim Republicans have veered more from the center than Democrats the last 20-30 years.

No thought needed at all... just regurgitation.  But folks believe what they are told to believe.  Especially when they limit their news to sources that are repetitively factually incorrect.  So when you don't know basic facts, your opinions are probably not strongly rooted in reality.

Let's take the fallacy that the Dems are led by far left socialists.  As Roma said, name some names!  It's going to be the Fox Boogie women that are a lot darker complected than nearly every Republican man elected.  Crucifying Obama for not leading on gay marriage 14 years ago?  Come on Man!  

I have to laugh at (I assume you are a white guy sack) the horrors of Democrats electing non-white people.  And holy shit, electing women and dare I even say it... black people?  Oh my the horror of people electing folks that look like them and think like them.  We can't all be terrified well armed white men!

Hard to not say the GOP hasn't lurched hard to the right.  Unless you are talking about spending.  The GOP spends more money while cutting revenues better than anyone.  Resulting each and every GOP Presidency in the 21st century handing off a complete cluster fuck economically. Which a Dem President has to clean up without a bit of fucking help from they hypocritical GOP.

[4th&Five 41461]

1 hour ago, Johnny Sack said:

A young man who was helping his community and shot three pieces of shit leftists who attacked him without justification.  He is zero risk to anyone except the pieces of shit you mourn that attacked him without provocation or justification.

It wasn’t his community. 

[Johnny Sack 8397]

17 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

It wasn’t his community. 

He worked there.  His dad lives there.  He lived 20 minutes away.

[wildcat09 29258]

3 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

He worked there.  His dad lives there.  He lived 20 minutes away.

A whole lot of people you wouldn't consider part of your community work in your neighborhood and live within 20 minutes from it.

[aggie08 21434]

God damnit, which one of you idiots had the bright idea to put up the Johnny Sack Kyle Rittenhouse bat signal?

[Satchel 6908]

4 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

No democrat can tell you what a woman is -- Jesus Obama was anti gay marriage when he ran for President in 2008.  Democrats have unashamed socialists as party heavyweights and thought leaders.

Dems in Dallas, Harris and Travis counties have a real hard time winning any primary unless they are the right color or sex. 

It is either a straight up lie or self delusion to claim Republicans have veered more from the center than Democrats the last 20-30 years.

It's largely white liberals causing this extreme shift to the left.

Some observations from one of Obama's staffers (and a socialist) -- data scientist David Shor:

 

At the subgroup level, Democrats gained somewhere between half a percent to one percent among non-college whites and roughly 7 percent among white college graduates (which is kind of crazy). Our support among African Americans declined by something like one to 2 percent. And then Hispanic support dropped by 8 to 9 percent....One implication of these shifts is that education polarization went up and racial polarization went down.

....What happened in 2020 is that nonwhite conservatives voted for Republicans at higher rates; they started voting more like white conservatives....Clinton voters with conservative views on crime, policing, and public safety were far more likely to switch to Trump than voters with less conservative views on those issues. And having conservative views on those issues was more predictive of switching from Clinton to Trump than having conservative views on any other issue-set was.

....This lines up pretty well with trends we saw during the campaign. In the summer, following the emergence of “defund the police” as a nationally salient issue, support for Biden among Hispanic voters declined. So I think you can tell this microstory: We raised the salience of an ideologically charged issue that millions of nonwhite voters disagreed with us on. And then, as a result, these conservative Hispanic voters who’d been voting for us despite their ideological inclinations started voting more like conservative whites.

....Over the last four years, white liberals have become a larger and larger share of the Democratic Party....And since white voters are sorting on ideology more than nonwhite voters, we’ve ended up in a situation where white liberals are more left wing than Black and Hispanic Democrats on pretty much every issue: taxes, health care, policing, and even on racial issues or various measures of “racial resentment.” So as white liberals increasingly define the party’s image and messaging, that’s going to turn off nonwhite conservative Democrats and push them against us.

....If Democrats elevate issues or theories that a large minority of nonwhite voters reject, it’s going to be hard to keep those margins....Black conservatives and Hispanic conservatives don’t actually buy into a lot of these intellectual theories of racism. They often have a very different conception of how to help the Black or Hispanic community than liberals do. And I don’t think we can buy our way out of this trade-off. Most voters are not liberals. If we polarize the electorate on ideology — or if nationally prominent Democrats raise the salience of issues that polarize the electorate on ideology — we’re going to lose a lot of votes.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/david-shor-2020-democrats-autopsy-hispanic-vote-midterms-trump-gop.html

Yeah, well. Look at it this way. Taylor, Potter and Lubbock counties are locks for the GOP.

[RomaVicta 29794]

2 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

A young man who was helping his community and shot three pieces of shit leftists who attacked him without justification.  He is zero risk to anyone except the pieces of shit you mourn that attacked him without provocation or justification.

You not only model irony deafness in your earlier post, but now you give the gift of a succinct example of how things work over there.

• Mischaracterize:  young man who was helping his community (see photograph above)
• Justify any act by someone on your side by villainizing their victims no matter the irrelevance:  shot three pieces of shit
• Absurdly apply a political label pointing at the ebil libs:  shot three pieces of shit leftists
• Lie about thoughts and sympathies of ebil libs:  the pieces of shit you mourn

That's really quite concise and simple to break down. Thanks and I'll let the basic dishonesty and lies pass this time as a reward. It's pitiful that you believe what you write.

[RomaVicta 29794]

2 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

All sorts of libs called Bush a racist Nazi when he was running for president after his successful term as a Texas governor.

 

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

You've got the timing wrong on that, the allegations that he was a fascist started in the run up to the Iraq war. But more importantly, that's not what I was responding to, which was your claim that GWB tried to play nice with Dems. Karl Rove's ratfucking of Max Cleland was as disgusting and dirty as anything the modern GOP has done. Bush and Rove's swiftboating of Kerry was complete bullshit and was almost as disgusting. His presidency was just as threatening for gays as today's GOP. There's fucking hundreds of examples of Bush, his administration, and his campaigns saying and doing shit just as disgusting as most of what Trump is reviled for.

That's not even getting into what the GOP congress did.  When the GOP controlled Congress during Bush's presidency, they literally held hidden committee meetings they didn't even tell Democratic members about. When Dems dared to speak out a tiny bit against the idea of invading Iraq, child-fucker Dennis Hastert accused them of giving aid to the enemy. And of course there was the social environment post-9/11, when opposition actually got cancelled. The Dixie Chicks and Phil Donahue are the obvious examples, but the fear of speaking out against the invasion of Iraq was everywhere. 

And you want to pretend those were the days when the GOP was playing nice? Fuck you and your bullshit revisionist history.

No fair! It's rude to answer a vague, unsupported accusation against all sorts of libs with a list of the names and misdeeds  of GOP leaders.

(Mr. Sack, before you pos rep this just know that the post is irony.)

 

[Gourmand 7774]

2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

There did used to be more guardrails around some certain rhetoric, but if anyone was the first to destroy them it was fucking W. 

Reagan's welfare queens and Papa Bush's Willie Horton would like a word.....

The GOP has always been the party of vile. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by Gourmand

[formermav43 4599]

2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

The idea that there was ever really a time in American politics that both sides got along and didn't say some pretty nasty shit about the other side is a complete myth. Politics has always been nasty.  There did used to be more guardrails around some certain rhetoric, but if anyone was the first to destroy them it was fucking Adams and Jefferson.

It’s been all downhill since the election of 1800.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

Romney going to put you back in chains!

[mchookem 16224]

[F250 28691]

To understand the Republican view you must understand that their worldview is filtered through the lens of modern cynicism. Johnny Sack's post is a great example of how cynicism shapes one's civic virtue. His view is very common amongst the Republican faithful. If you genuinely believe that nobody abides by the rules then only a fool would adhere to the rules.

What is interesting is it was conservative intellectuals that warned about society being dragged into postmodern amorality by the Left when the real danger existed on the Right.

 

* I am not a member of the Democratic Party nor a liberal.

[zzzz 39]

7 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

A young man who was helping his community and shot three pieces of shit leftists who attacked him without justification.  He is zero risk to anyone except the pieces of shit you mourn that attacked him without provocation or justification.

He shot two men pursuing a fleeing killer in their community. 

[fattyflattie 4636]

7 minutes ago, zzzz said:

He shot two men pursuing a fleeing killer in their community

You sure?  Pedo was living in Milwaukee iirc, but from the southwest iirc.  Skate bro was from the area.  Don’t recall where biceps is from. 

[Johnny Sack 8397]

15 minutes ago, zzzz said:

He shot two men pursuing a fleeing killer in their community. 

Two men who didn’t witness him shoot anyone but joined a pissed off lynch mob chasing him for a justified killing.  And then those two men committed aggravated assault on him.  He responded and lawfully defended himself.  

[VRHorn 718]

Yay, Thursday night Sack talking about Kyle Butterball - let's roll.

[Brisketexan 104628]

Yay, Thursday night Sack talking about Kyle Butterball - let's roll.

It’s rude to interrupt a man while he furiously masturbates. Give Sack his space.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

19 minutes ago, VRHorn said:

Yay, Thursday night Sack talking about Kyle Butterball - let's roll.

Sorry to disappoint you. Was at a kid soccer game.  About to toss some halibut on the grill and pack for a hunting trip we are leaving for at noon tomorrow.  I don’t drink during the week. Too busy with family and work.  I will be drinking this weekend at the ranch.  And slaughtering turkeys.  

[horn4life 3755]

18 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Sorry to disappoint you. Was at a kid soccer game.  About to toss some halibut on the grill and pack for a hunting trip we are leaving for at noon tomorrow.  I don’t drink during the week. Too busy with family and work.  I will be drinking this weekend at the ranch.  And slaughtering turkeys.  

FUCK!

I was really hoping you were getting blasted during the daytime.  I had a glimmer of hope.... 😉

[Johnny Sack 8397]

Packed up.  Now it’s time to go to bed with my smoking hot wife.  Pics to prove:

 

[F250 28691]

3 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Packed up.  Now it’s time to go to bed with my smoking hot wife.  Pics to prove:

 

[South Austin 52144]

References smoking hot wife, posts pic of his weekend packing. Negged.

[DigglerontheHoof 21065]

On 4/20/2022 at 12:10 PM, horn4life said:

My political attitude is about the same as it's been since my mid 20's.  Fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

During that time the GOP went from a fiscally conservative party with a libertarian lean, to a party of fiscal stupidity and downright dangerous to democracy.  The Dems unfortunately have been shot in the foot repetitively by the left wing of their party.  But MORESO by the GOP's complete lack of giving a shit about this country, and only caring about their party.  Which is how they can oppose everything and be for nothing.

The real problem is the folks that love their flags, their guns, and their freedom (for light skinned folks) do not see the danger their leadership poses to the fundamental principles of our democracy.  It's all a game, where "owning the libs" is the end and and be all of what it is today to be Republican, for the vast majority of Republicans.  There is of course the large swath of the GOP that embrace racism, but don't think they are racist.  

We are potentially in for a very dark period.  I honestly believe most Republicans would get rid of democracy completely if the could rule this country.  I don't think I can say the same of the Dems.  Neither party is great.  But the Dems are the far less evil of the two.  The GOP cannot for example admit that Russian Facebook manipulation helped Trump win in 2016.  They actually believe more falsehoods than truths.  

It is important to point out that Hitler was ELECTED to office and Putin was ELECTED to office.  What they and the current GOP have in common is the GOP's willingness to override norms and accept behavior far outside the norms in the quest for political advantage.  And that's exactly how both Hitler and Putin managed to take complete control.  What norm would the GOP not throw away for control?  I can't think of anything right now they would not toss, nothing.

My long-lost identical political position; wish I could rep it 100 times. 

Edited April 22, 2022 by DigglerontheHoof

[TwiceHorn 31283]

19 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

A young man who was helping his community 

Wherever you come out on Rittenhouse and the trial, this is absurd.

[Bojack 2073]

On 4/20/2022 at 10:03 PM, Anastasis said:

Oh, and bolverk you are totally delusional if you think that that the us political establishment broadly, both republicans and democrats, didn’t have skin in the game wrt Iraq. Revisionist history. But yes gwb and the folks should get run over it. Just don’t stop there. 
 

 

A great many mainstream Democrats went along with Afghanistan and Iraq.  I, for one, will hold that against them always but there's no bigger revisionist crock of shit than dismissing the fact that the vast majority of opposition to those wars was on the left.  I wish more of you both-siders, Republicans or whatever had been more visible in being against that shit if that's indeed how you felt back then.  

[gmr548 16517]

Packed up.  Now it’s time to go to bed with my smoking hot wife.  Pics to prove:
 

I assume the turkey prop is the smoking hot wife? Texags would be proud

[Anastasis 23394]

14 hours ago, Bojack said:

A great many mainstream Democrats went along with Afghanistan and Iraq.  I, for one, will hold that against them always but there's no bigger revisionist crock of shit than dismissing the fact that the vast majority of opposition to those wars was on the left.  I wish more of you both-siders, Republicans or whatever had been more visible in being against that shit if that's indeed how you felt back then.  

 

Oh, I know.  I lived next to some very vocal folks at the time. Strangely the STOP WAR NOW! signs went back in the garage early 2009 to start collecting dust. Whatever happened to that Sheehan lady anyways?  At some point the media coverage just kinda cut off. 

[Johnny Sack 8397]

17 hours ago, Anastasis said:

 

Oh, I know.  I lived next to some very vocal folks at the time. Strangely the STOP WAR NOW! signs went back in the garage early 2009 to start collecting dust. Whatever happened to that Sheehan lady anyways?  At some point the media coverage just kinda cut off. 

 They weren’t anti war.  They were anti Bush.  Obama executed by drone American citizens without due process and they gave zero fucks.  

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

One of the many reasons I don't see us getting better.  We all bemoan facts not mattering.  IMO, that extends straight from a belief in a sky god and an unerring book (full of contradictions) that is somehow our guide.   "Faith" is a problem that is never going away.

 

Quote

 

People who endorse conspiracy theories tend to be more religious, and this may be due to ideological overlap

A large study published in the journal Political Psychology suggests that the link between conspiracy belief and religiosity is rooted in cognitive similarities between the two beliefs. The overall findings suggest that people with higher conspiracy belief also tend to be more religious, and this is likely driven by overlapping ideological and political worldviews.

Scholars have noted the similarities between religion and features of conspiracy theories, but the nature of this overlap is uncertain. Some researchers have suggested that the two beliefs fulfill similar psychological needs, such as morality, belonging, and sense of control. Others suggest that the beliefs share cognitive styles, with both alluding to invisible forces at play and offering “anomalies as explanatory starting points.”

“Several similarities have been noted between religiosity and conspiracy theory beliefs: Both suggest that there is more in the world than is visible, both promise to address similar needs like to understand the world, and both tend to speak to similar political orientations. But it was unclear what these parallels mean empirically for their relation. They could either serve as surrogates or as complements for each other,” explained study author Marius Frenken, a doctoral research assistant at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz.

Frenken and colleagues were motivated to consider which of these theories is most accurate, by exploring the correlation between belief in conspiracies and religiosity. If the two ideologies fulfill similar needs, a negative correlation should be found, since people would be expected to endorse one or the other. But if religiosity and conspiracy belief share cognitive features, a positive correlation should be found, since people who believe in one should be more likely to also believe in the other.

The researchers first conducted a meta-analysis of previous studies that reported relationships between conspiracy mindset and religiosity or specific conspiracy beliefs and religiosity. While most of the samples were based in the United States, the analysis also included non-Christian samples from Iran and Turkey. The findings revealed a significant positive correlation between religiosity and conspiracy mindset and a slightly stronger correlation between religiosity and the tendency to endorse specific conspiracy beliefs.

Next, the researchers conducted a series of follow-up studies. Data from two US samples revealed small to medium-sized positive correlations between religiosity and conspiracy mindset and religiosity and specific conspiracy beliefs. Notably, these effects decreased substantially when controlling for political beliefs, suggesting that the relationships between religiosity and conspiracy belief were largely driven by shared political ideologies.

“The relation between religiosity and the endorsement of conspiracy theories is politically laden,” Frenken told PsyPost. “Many conspiracy theories speak to the political right and religiosity is in many countries also more pronounced in the right political spectrum. These overlaps with political orientation could explain why religiosity and conspiracy beliefs are often positively associated.”

However, separate analyses of German and Polish datasets revealed negative correlations between religiosity and conspiracy mentality. But the Polish data revealed a positive relationship between religiosity and belief in specific conspiracy theories. Similar to the US sample, the strength of the relationship decreased and was no longer significant after controlling for political orientation.

The authors say the findings are largely in line with the hypothesis that religiosity and the endorsement of conspiracy theories share similar cognitive features. “The positive correlations suggest that similarities in the cognitive and explanatory style—like assuming hidden powers behind events—speak to the same persons and dominate the relation between conspiracy theory endorsement and religiosity,” Frenken and colleagues wrote in their study.

The results further suggest that this is especially true in the US, where religiosity and conspiracy belief seems to be particularly enmeshed with political belief. “We observed cultural differences regarding the role of religion,” Frenken told PsyPost. “While there is a general tendency to suspect sinister forces at play among religious people in the United States, this tendency is reduced for religiosity in the examined European countries.”

But “religiosity should not be confused with spirituality or supernatural beliefs as it is more institutionalized and rather a mainstream phenomenon,” Frenken noted. “Spirituality and supernatural beliefs are strongly correlated with conspiracy beliefs without any political overlaps.”

A limitation to the study was that it examined mainly Christian samples, and the results may not generalize to other religions. “And as always in correlational studies, the causal directions of the associations are subject to further research,” Frenken said.

The study, “On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation”, was authored by Marius Frenken, Michał Bilewicz, and Roland Imhoff.

 

 

https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/people-who-endorse-conspiracy-theories-tend-to-be-more-religious-and-this-may-be-due-to-ideological-overlap-63020

[Satchel 6908]

That’s certainly one way of looking at it. I think most of us have faith of varying degrees in something, even if it’s the chair that we’re sitting in now. Blaming faith/religion for the growing embrace of conspiracy theories is too easy. That so many of us are not equipped to think critically is much more problematic, imo.