My reflections on 2020 AD - Page 7 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15079879
Godstud wrote:Trump is not a good Christian.

President Trump is a believer in Christ. That is more than I can say for your atheist ass.
Praise the Lord.
#15079880
Believing isn't enough unless you actually follow the rules, which is more than I can say for your fake Christian ass. :lol:
#15079883
Godstud wrote:Believing isn't enough unless you actually follow the rules, which is more than I can say for your fake Christian ass. :lol:

Atheists, like you, do not understand what "believing in Christ" means.
#15079885
Hindsite wrote:Atheists, like you, do not understand what "believing in Christ" means.


I believe that you neither understand Atheism nor what believing in Christ is, from insofar as I can tell. I wrote this a while back, maybe you or somebody might think it worth thinking about;

The origin of the word ''Atheist'' comes from the Greek; ''atheos'', or ''without god(s)''. Not ''against'', or ''in denial of'' necessarily, but ''without''...

Now, we know from Scripture as Christians that the knowledge of the True God is impossible without the gift or grace of 'faith'. Heretics and Schismatics and Infidels don't have the grace of faith, so they are ''without god'', or ''Atheists'', themselves. Fortunately, God is good and loves mankind, so people are moving towards faith in Him all the time, and everywhere. It's a mystery known only to God Himself, who He draws to Him.

This is really a complicated issue in a number of aspects, but the fact remains that being without God is being without God, even if one thinks they have God, perhaps they do not and only adore an Idol which is a reflection of their errors about reality and those of others as well. This may not be easy for some to accept or hear, and all too easy for one to just dismiss.

Certainly, the worst position seems to be that of those who don't care one way or another, but definitely live life as if there was not a God. They are in the condition of what Kirkegaard called ''Despair'', or the ''sickness unto death'', but are not aware of it consciously. This is because these people are barely aware of being a self at all, and go through life in a most superficial way, either only dealing with life in terms of what is agreeable or disagreeable to them, what pleases or displeases them. Or they are of the sort who builds those Idols I was speaking of earlier, who generates abstract Ideas and believes those ideas have a life of their own independently of their own minds, and can never liberate themselves from those ideas that are after all, only in their head. If they awaken to their situation, these people, they may see what trouble they're in.

No, only ''Atheists'' who consciously understand what is at stake and are actively in the search for truth that will put an end to their very conscious despair, these perhaps will be granted faith to continue on their journey, and not sink back into the previous state of apathetic unconscious despair.


Anyway, here it is.
#15079901
annatar1914 wrote:I believe that you neither understand Atheism nor what believing in Christ is, from insofar as I can tell. I wrote this a while back, maybe you or somebody might think it worth thinking about;


Anyway, here it is.

Why didn't you write something explaining "believing in Christ" to help atheists like Godstud?
#15080040
Hindsite wrote:Why didn't you write something explaining "believing in Christ" to help atheists like Godstud?


Christians help unbelievers come to believe, by living the Christian life through actions as well as words. Attacking people, not choosing one's words carefully, saying things that are untrue, mixing in one's personal views and politics in a partisan manner while speaking of Christianity, this does not help people see the light...

If one is still in darkness themselves.
#15080095
annatar1914 wrote:Christians help unbelievers come to believe, by living the Christian life through actions as well as words. Attacking people, not choosing one's words carefully, saying things that are untrue, mixing in one's personal views and politics in a partisan manner while speaking of Christianity, this does not help people see the light...

If one is still in darkness themselves.

So to make this more clear, you believe Godstud is too far gone to help with any words on how to believe in Christianity, because he attacks people, says things that are not true, uses nasty words, and speaks of Christianity negatively by mixing his personal atheist views with his partisan politics.

Over the years, I basically came to believe much the same myself, because he has been attacking me in a nasty manner ever since I came on here, because of both my political and Christian views. He is an extreme Trump hater and transfers that hate on to those that express their support for Trump policies.

Godstud's constant trolling of my posts to attack me got the better of my normal good nature and that is why I began to attack him back. I didn't realize it at the time, but that attitude flowed over to all the left-wing liberal Trump haters on here that act similar to Godstud. I made an attempt to ignore Godstud at one point, but I could no longer ignore his false statements without making an attempt to correct them. Hopefully, one day someone will come along that can get through to him and others on here that are in darkness to save their souls. I guess it is not going to be you or me. However, we do have our disagreements too. I told another poster by PM that I would probably leave here after the November election.
Praise the Lord
#15080107
@Hindsite
So to make this more clear, you believe Godstud is too far gone to help with any words on how to believe in Christianity


No, he isn't. And you aren't too far gone either to believe in Christianity instead of believing in men.



, because he attacks people, says things that are not true, uses nasty words, and speaks of Christianity negatively by mixing his personal atheist views with his partisan politics.


Let's say that he does that, just for the sake of argument. You attack people, say things that aren't true, use nasty words ,and mix your personal Evangelical views with your partisan politics. Specks and beams.

Over the years, I basically came to believe much the same myself, because he has been attacking me in a nasty manner ever since I came on here, because of both my political and Christian views.


Yes, Atheists and especially very politically motivated ones (political ideology being their religion substitute) can possibly be nasty and harsh to those they see as mixing Theistic religion into secular politics.


He is an extreme Trump hater and transfers that hate on to those that express their support for Trump policies.


Trump has a deliberately abrasive political persona that is meant quite consciously to be irritating to his political opponents and make them lose their minds, so it's easy for them to hate him and those who support him.

Godstud's constant trolling of my posts to attack me got the better of my normal good nature and that is why I began to attack him back.


That's not very Christian, is it? But fact is is that in this environment it could be too unhealthy and toxic for you here. I'm considering leaving as well, have even tried to, but there are people here that I enjoy talking to and I get something approaching more wisdom from them. I'm willing to change my views if convinced I'm wrong, whereas you are very committed to your political positions. Maybe too much in my opinion, but ultimately that's something between you and the Good Lord.

I didn't realize it at the time, but that attitude flowed over to all the left-wing liberal Trump haters on here that act similar to Godstud.


Right. That's called ''dehumanization'', not seeing them as fellow human beings made in the Image and Likeness of Almighty God.



I made an attempt to ignore Godstud at one point, but I could no longer ignore his false statements without making an attempt to correct them.


Have you considered that it's not your place to ''correct'' people, that maybe it's better to live your life and by your example persuade people if God should so will it?



Hopefully, one day someone will come along that can get through to him and others on here that are in darkness to save their souls.


Save your soul, with God's help, and look to your own failings first. I don't take an attitude like that in my mind that could easily make people think I'm ''better'' than they are-because I'm not.



I guess it is not going to be you or me.


It could be God Himself. But whatever God does with people, ultimately He does it Himself even if He works through people, so we have no cause to boast.

However, we do have our disagreements too.


Yes, we do. But, if I had total contempt for you personally and decided it wasn't worth it to talk to you at all, I would just ignore what you write on here entirely. So, I haven't let our personal disagreements cloud the fact that you're a child of God too, same as me.


I told another poster by PM that I would probably leave here after the November election.



That's entirely up to you and how you feel God is moving you to do or not do. My thinking is that everybody has gone a little too worked up over things, and we need to be calm and reasonable with each other, respectful of one another.
#15080117
annatar1914 wrote:@Hindsite

No, he isn't. And you aren't too far gone either to believe in Christianity instead of believing in men.

Let's say that he does that, just for the sake of argument. You attack people, say things that aren't true, use nasty words ,and mix your personal Evangelical views with your partisan politics. Specks and beams.

My thinking is that everybody has gone a little too worked up over things, and we need to be calm and reasonable with each other, respectful of one another.

I apologize for misunderstanding you. I am not going to respond to all your comments because I feel that you really put me down and in my place. However, I still disagree with you on some Christian topics such as the rapture and the return of Christ. But it is nice to learn that you are willing to be more reasonable and respectful to me. I will try to be the same to you.
Hallelu YaH
#15080119
Hindsite wrote:I apologize for misunderstanding you. I am not going to respond to all your comments because I feel that you really put me down and in my place. However, I still disagree with you on some Christian topics such as the rapture and the return of Christ. But it is nice to learn that you are willing to be more reasonable and respectful to me. I will try to be the same to you.
Hallelu YaH


I never had the intent of ''putting you down and in your place'', because only you know that best, you and God. We're all on a journey. And I think I should indeed be more reasonable and respectful of you too, because I haven't been. I'm alive, so I'm still learning too. I shouldn't let disagreements obscure your status as a human being, a child of God.

So let's start over, shall we? Every day is genuinely a gift from God.
#15119818
What a year. Today is September 14th, September 1st in the Orthodox Christian calendar and actually the beginning of the New Year, the 7,529th year of the world.

I am in a sense politically burned out. For an American I am very much a ''conservative'' in the European sense, I'd very much limit the civilian 2nd Amendment right to bear arms for example, but am quite pro-life and anti-euthanasia, pro-capital punishment, traditional family defense, and favorable to the Orthodox Church. So i'm bound to make people angry on all sides of the American political spectrum on that alone.

But I'm also very much a Socialist in the Statist vein, and so there too I get hit all the time. No slackers or shirkers, everyone who can work, must. In return, education, health care, utilities and rent, retirement and pensions, all paid for by the common effort. Low taxes, full employment, vacation and family time off work, credits for families and children, affordable food.

That causes problems with my holding those opinions too. And the state of American politics is such that if I make one remark against something, I must automatically be for the other guy. It's insane.

Funny thing is, many modern Americans are a lot of tough talk and not a whole lot of definitive action. At the same time we can be very violent, although we prefer drone strikes and the like to up close and personal fighting. ''Rambo'' more than ''Karate Kid'', or even more so, just a video game idea of war and social strife. So again the funny part is a lot of this worry and hysteria and paranoia is driven by the media cycle and the media isn't trusted at all, for good reasons. Chances are wherever you live, it's better than it's being made out to be even if it's making the news; Portland isn't Leningrad 1942, Chicago isn't Saigon 1975, Trump isn't Hitler and Biden isn't Mao. You get the picture, I hope.
#15121342
@Potemkin , @blackjack21 ;


Almost everybody likes representative democracy/ a republic, as long as they think they are getting their way and their political opponents are denied theirs. These days are no different in that sense from the times of Ancient Athens and Ancient Rome.

But that political system was contingent on factors of time and place, some say. Small city-states with a limited franchise in any case, and pretty impossible for a large nation-state.

Ballots, not blood spilled. A citizenry that accepts the results of elections even if their side loses. In American history, the 1800 Presidential election was pretty much the first in many centuries in which one side let the results stand when they lost.

1860 was a Presidential election in which the results of Lincoln's election as President were rejected by a sizable portion of the population in one region of the country, such that civil war was the result.

Today in our time we have an election in 2008 in which a small but significant portion of the political establishment and citizenry had psychologically refused to accept the results due to their perception of the incoming President as unacceptable, and developed a theory in which his very Presidency was thought Constitutionally invalidated by suspicion of his not being a natural born citizen of the United States. Trump was apparently one of those who latched on to this idea at one time.

In 2016, Trump was elected President (An irony that both men-thank God!-kept Hillary Clinton away from the White House as President is interesting). And sure enough, a significant portion of the political establishment and citizenry had refused to accept his Presidency and sought to stymie his every effort at every turn until we have arrived at the 2020 Presidential elections (another irony being that many millions of people have voted for BOTH Obama and Trump, and that both men will likely be two-term Presidents).

Will the Political establishment faction that hates Trump accept his re-election? I believe they will, and I think they actually in a way want him to win (everything else is a smokescreen to obscure that), because that way they can develop their candidates for 2024 when Trump is gone. They'll continue to box him in and try to hobble and stymie his moves until he's out, and then by 2024 they'll have...

...Their own Democratic version of ''Donald Trump'' as a Candidate, appealing to the same politics of nationalism and populism, every bit as much a master persuader as possible. and about as ''Liberal'' and as ''Conservative'' as President Trump is now. But theirs, not the GOP's.
#15121413
annatar1914 wrote:Today in our time we have an election in 2008 in which a small but significant portion of the political establishment and citizenry had psychologically refused to accept the results due to their perception of the incoming President as unacceptable, and developed a theory in which his very Presidency was thought Constitutionally invalidated by suspicion of his not being a natural born citizen of the United States. Trump was apparently one of those who latched on to this idea at one time.

This isn't the first time an election has been contested or thought somehow illegitimate. Remember the Chicago Times headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman"? It was before my time, but political machine politics often have a way of coming up with the needed votes in spite of the lack of needed voters. Kennedy was also said to have cheated in Chicago, and squeaked out a win against Nixon.

Democrats accused Nixon of sabotaging peace talks before his 1968 election. They went on to force him from office after the largest landslide election in US history--(less absolute than Washington's, but America was a much bigger country in 1972). The Democrats claimed that Reagan worked with Iran to delay the release of hostages, stole Carter's "playbook", etc. They accused George W. Bush of stealing the election in Florida in spite of the fact that Democrats nixed nearly 8000 military ballots and not a single vote count favored Gore.

So it is not the first time that some whackado theory about a president was floated around.

annatar1914 wrote:In 2016, Trump was elected President (An irony that both men-thank God!-kept Hillary Clinton away from the White House as President is interesting). And sure enough, a significant portion of the political establishment and citizenry had refused to accept his Presidency and sought to stymie his every effort at every turn until we have arrived at the 2020 Presidential elections (another irony being that many millions of people have voted for BOTH Obama and Trump, and that both men will likely be two-term Presidents).

The efforts to hamper Trump have been legendary, and substantially useless. One could even say it is backfiring. What reason does anyone have right now to vote for Democrats, other than sowing the seeds of discord?

annatar1914 wrote:Will the Political establishment faction that hates Trump accept his re-election? I believe they will, and I think they actually in a way want him to win (everything else is a smokescreen to obscure that), because that way they can develop their candidates for 2024 when Trump is gone.

Why do you believe this? Hillary Clinton already encouraged Biden not to concede under any circumstances, such as a landslide. They hate Trump with a passion--a passion that has driven them certifiably crazy. Did you write this before or after you knew that Ruth Bader Ginsberg had died?

annatar1914 wrote:...Their own Democratic version of ''Donald Trump'' as a Candidate, appealing to the same politics of nationalism and populism

Maybe they return to the DLC days. Who knows. John Hickenlooper and Steve Bullock got zero traction, even though they are "normal" Americans compared to the other Democrat candidates. It seems the Democrats are so invested in political correctness and intersectionality that they are unable to leave it behind. It's worse than that, though. The Democrats used to be the party that promised a better life to working class people--better in the sense of a higher standard of living. Today, the Democrats preach the opposite--that people need to do with less in order to save the planet from climate change. They preach this for everyone except the elite, who of course can fly in private jets to climate change conferences. The modern left has abandoned improved living standards for working class people. So they would have to fundamentally transform in 4 years--something I don't think is in the offing. I could be wrong. I just don't see them moving away from this dystopian narrative.
#15121425
@blackjack21 , you replied;

This isn't the first time an election has been contested or thought somehow illegitimate. Remember the Chicago Times headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman"? It was before my time, but political machine politics often have a way of coming up with the needed votes in spite of the lack of needed voters. Kennedy was also said to have cheated in Chicago, and squeaked out a win against Nixon.


I draw some comfort from that oddly enough, that if I'm objective I can see that this isn't too out of the ordinary for modern times. And yet, there is a batshit crazy wing of the Liberals that is not capable of objectivity or rationality. They'll get frozen out of the process I believe. There's a reason why this thread is in the ''spirituality'' section; they simply have become enemies of both God and their fellow Man.
Democrats accused Nixon of sabotaging peace talks before his 1968 election. They went on to force him from office after the largest landslide election in US history--(less absolute than Washington's, but America was a much bigger country in 1972). The Democrats claimed that Reagan worked with Iran to delay the release of hostages, stole Carter's "playbook", etc. They accused George W. Bush of stealing the election in Florida in spite of the fact that Democrats nixed nearly 8000 military ballots and not a single vote count favored Gore.


Some of the dirty tricks are on the GOP side I'm sure.

So it is not the first time that some whackado theory about a president was floated around.


Like with Lincoln though, and the Southerners who were convinced in 1860 that he was wanting to end slavery by hook or by crook, these conspiracy theories have a way of becoming real because of the very actions of the crazies who float them.


The efforts to hamper Trump have been legendary, and substantially useless. One could even say it is backfiring. What reason does anyone have right now to vote for Democrats, other than sowing the seeds of discord?


When the time comes those sowers of discord will find the money spigot has run dry. I suspect many of these mobs out in the streets have been paid to do what they're doing, and if the Right were paying them they'd almost as soon do their bidding as easily as they have for the Liberals.

Why do you believe this? Hillary Clinton already encouraged Biden not to concede under any circumstances, such as a landslide. They hate Trump with a passion--a passion that has driven them certifiably crazy. Did you write this before or after you knew that Ruth Bader Ginsberg had died?


Actually I don't recall, lol. But I have a hunch about this election; Biden/Harris is taking a dive like McCain and Romney did for Obama. The crazies are just window dressing no matter what they think, camouflage for the Democrats giving up on 2020.


Maybe they return to the DLC days. Who knows. John Hickenlooper and Steve Bullock got zero traction, even though they are "normal" Americans compared to the other Democrat candidates. It seems the Democrats are so invested in political correctness and intersectionality that they are unable to leave it behind. It's worse than that, though. The Democrats used to be the party that promised a better life to working class people--better in the sense of a higher standard of living. Today, the Democrats preach the opposite--that people need to do with less in order to save the planet from climate change. They preach this for everyone except the elite, who of course can fly in private jets to climate change conferences. The modern left has abandoned improved living standards for working class people. So they would have to fundamentally transform in 4 years--something I don't think is in the offing. I could be wrong. I just don't see them moving away from this dystopian narrative.


I think that they will give up much of this nonsense. They in fact are giving up this nonsense-or trying to- by letting it play out in front of the American people and discrediting this insanity for at least a generation.
#15121456
blackjack21 wrote:Today, the Democrats preach the opposite--that people need to do with less in order to save the planet from climate change. They preach this for everyone except the elite, who of course can fly in private jets to climate change conferences. The modern left has abandoned improved living standards for working class people. So they would have to fundamentally transform in 4 years -- something I don't think is in the offing. I could be wrong. I just don't see them moving away from this dystopian narrative.



I suspect most anti-Trumpers on PoFo will probably jump furiously on this comment and say something like:

"It's the Republicans who openly help the elite or the privileged (who are not necessarily elites) to get even more of what they do not deserve and make everyone else suffer. What blackjack21 says here are lies, by slandering the Democrats while not criticizing the ones who actually grab everything out of greed and cause climate change themselves, i.e. Republicans"
#15121462
annatar1914 wrote:I draw some comfort from that oddly enough, that if I'm objective I can see that this isn't too out of the ordinary for modern times. And yet, there is a batshit crazy wing of the Liberals that is not capable of objectivity or rationality.

After reading Richard Rorty's "Contingeny, Irony and Solidarity" several decades ago, it occurred to me that it's not that the left is incapable of reason, it's that they cannot accomplish their political objectives with reason; hence, they actively abandoned it. I linked the text so you can save yourself the 20 bucks or whatever.

Richard Rorty wrote:About two hundred years ago, the idea that truth was made rather than found began to take hold of the imagination of Europe. The French Revolution had shown that the whole vocabulary of social relations, and the whole spectrum of social institutions, could be replaced almost overnight. This precedent made utopian politics the rule rather than the exception among intellectuals. Utopian politics sets aside questions about both the will of God and the nature of man and dreams of creating a hitherto unknown form of society.

So this semantic game around the notion of "truth" ultimately rejects an aspect of the Enlightenment, and reduces much of it to semantics. This is where I profoundly disagree with them, and why I can never be a leftist.

Richard Rorty wrote:This development has led to a split within philosophy. Some philosophers have remained faithful to the Enlightenment and have continued to identify themselves with the cause of science.

Rorty is often considered an American pragmatist, but I think abandoning science is not pragmatic at all. Material developments resulting from science and reason have been too profound to pretend that it is all meaningless.

Ricard Rorty wrote:We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states. To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

Truth cannot be out there - cannot exist independently of the human mind - because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own - unaided by the describing activities of human beings - cannot.

The suggestion that truth, as well as the world, is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a language of his own. If we cease to attempt to make sense of the idea of such a nonhuman language, we shall not be tempted to confuse the platitude that the world may cause us to be justified in believing a sentence true with the claim that the world splits itself up, on its own initiative, into sentence-shaped chunks called "facts." But if one clings to the notion of self-subsistent facts, it is easy to start capitalizing the word "truth" and treating it as something identical either with God or with the world as God's project. Then one will say, for example, that Truth is great, and will prevail.

So I agree with your sentiment that some of these people are batshit crazy. However, there are some who know exactly what they are doing, and are deliberately undermining reason and truth as constructs upon which a society can be built. You could almost characterize them as intellectual anarchists.

annatar1914 wrote:They'll get frozen out of the process I believe. There's a reason why this thread is in the ''spirituality'' section; they simply have become enemies of both God and their fellow Man.

Well, they have also become enemies not so much of the truth, but the notion that "truth" can exist.

annatar1914 wrote:Some of the dirty tricks are on the GOP side I'm sure.

Oh, no doubt. However, I don't think I've ever heard anything so bold as the pushing of mail-in balloting, assertions by people like Hillary Clinton that Biden should not concede under any circumstance, that there will be a "red mirage" where Trump wins big, and then they will come in ex post facto with tons of uncounted ballots where they need them that they have suddenly "discovered" and attempt to overturn the election. The transparency with which they are willing to commit fraud is unlike anything I've ever seen.

Much of what is happening to Trump is unprecedented in US politics--pushing a 25th Amendment removal, pushing an emoluments clause removal, launching a completely phony Russiagate scandal, impeaching him on completely bogus grounds, politicizing a pandemic, stoking riots across US cities, etc. Now we'll have the RBG seat riots on top of it.

annatar1914 wrote:Like with Lincoln though, and the Southerners who were convinced in 1860 that he was wanting to end slavery by hook or by crook, these conspiracy theories have a way of becoming real because of the very actions of the crazies who float them.

Well, the Republicans did do just that. If you parse the slavery argument from a legal perspective--and why the confederacy rhetoric lingers on--what the Union did was straight up illegal. The Emancipation Proclamation took private property without just compensation; then, they ratified the 14th Amendment by the barrel of a gun, ultimately sanctioning a 5th Amendment violation against taking private property without just compensation, but only in the case of freeing slaves. I will not offer a moral defense of slavery, as I oppose it politically and morally myself. I used to debate an Italian gal who was a translator, who also could not understand my position on equality--it seems leftists can only understand someone who doesn't agree with them as defending the ancien regime. She died of brain cancer. Anyway, she said she was trembling when I posted the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. That war was justified on moral grounds. "He (the Lord) hath loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on." "As He (Christ) died to make men holy, Let us die to make men free; While God is marching on." The Battle Hymn of the Republic scares the living shit out of atheists.

annatar1914 wrote:When the time comes those sowers of discord will find the money spigot has run dry. I suspect many of these mobs out in the streets have been paid to do what they're doing, and if the Right were paying them they'd almost as soon do their bidding as easily as they have for the Liberals.

Agreed. That's also why Trump is a seminal figure, as someone like Bush probably wouldn't have used US Marshals or sedition laws among other things to bring the violent arm of the Democrats to heel.

annatar1914 wrote:Actually I don't recall, lol. But I have a hunch about this election; Biden/Harris is taking a dive like McCain and Romney did for Obama. The crazies are just window dressing no matter what they think, camouflage for the Democrats giving up on 2020.

I think so too, but I don't think the effort to delegitimize Trump will stop after election day.

annatar1914 wrote:I think that they will give up much of this nonsense. They in fact are giving up this nonsense-or trying to- by letting it play out in front of the American people and discrediting this insanity for at least a generation.

Agreed. However, like Nixon, they still didn't let him govern in his second term. Trump needs to take the House and hold the Senate too. Nancy Pelosi has never proven to be anything but horribly divisive.

Richard Rorty wrote:I have been urging that the democracies are now in a position to throwaway some of the ladders used in their own construction.

This is why I think the craziness is deliberate. It's why I couldn't take Anthony Kennedy seriously in Obergefell. It's why I can't accept Neil Gorsuch as a conservative either with his recent ruling on protection against sex discrimination applying to transgenders when such people were considered mentally ill at the time the law was written. Even the conservatives are radical liberals in my view. They've simply lost their minds.
#15121492
@blackjack21 , you said in response to my post that;

After reading Richard Rorty's "Contingeny, Irony and Solidarity" several decades ago, it occurred to me that it's not that the left is incapable of reason, it's that they cannot accomplish their political objectives with reason; hence, they actively abandoned it. I linked the text so you can save yourself the 20 bucks or whatever.


They've gotten to the point beyond where they can describe the problems they want to address, because they have no problems to discuss at all, just a series of excuses to have tantrums, curse and blaspheme, destroy and even kill.


So this semantic game around the notion of "truth" ultimately rejects an aspect of the Enlightenment, and reduces much of it to semantics. This is where I profoundly disagree with them, and why I can never be a leftist.


If it was all from the very beginning an exercise in a kind of warfare against all things, I'd have to agree with you if that's true, and some thinkers actually believe that. If in promoting Socialism for example it was never really so much about Socialism but destroying the previous order of things, in the hearts of would-be revolutionaries.

Rorty is often considered an American pragmatist, but I think abandoning science is not pragmatic at all. Material developments resulting from science and reason have been too profound to pretend that it is all meaningless.


Science and reason are gifts from God, that have become idols in themselves, but a corrosive skepticism about reality is not the answer and is in fact a case of Scientists and Rationalists abandoning the very things they're still going on about that mean something.


So I agree with your sentiment that some of these people are batshit crazy. However, there are some who know exactly what they are doing, and are deliberately undermining reason and truth as constructs upon which a society can be built. You could almost characterize them as intellectual anarchists.


Oh yes, and they exist right here on PoFo as well. Language itself becomes a weapon to them. I suspect however that there are others among those who know what they're doing, who do believe in absolutes truths but are piggybacking on this disorder as a means to spread their own religion.

Well, they have also become enemies not so much of the truth, but the notion that "truth" can exist.


And by doing so abandon their own creation in the Image and Likeness of almighty God, as rational souls.


Oh, no doubt. However, I don't think I've ever heard anything so bold as the pushing of mail-in balloting, assertions by people like Hillary Clinton that Biden should not concede under any circumstance, that there will be a "red mirage" where Trump wins big, and then they will come in ex post facto with tons of uncounted ballots where they need them that they have suddenly "discovered" and attempt to overturn the election. The transparency with which they are willing to commit fraud is unlike anything I've ever seen.


So transparent in fact that I suspect a measure of fake outrage both of the sort in which one works oneself into a hysteria because of boredom just to have something ''worthwhile'' to do, and of the kind of calculated ''fake outrage'' where it's as i've said; a 'smokescreen' to cover a saving move closer to the right by 2024.

Much of what is happening to Trump is unprecedented in US politics--pushing a 25th Amendment removal, pushing an emoluments clause removal, launching a completely phony Russiagate scandal, impeaching him on completely bogus grounds, politicizing a pandemic, stoking riots across US cities, etc. Now we'll have the RBG seat riots on top of it.


I can see white female liberals getting all worked up over it, and their virtue-signaling somewhat-male hangers-on, but outside the Media and Entertainment complexes I'm not so sure.

Well, the Republicans did do just that. If you parse the slavery argument from a legal perspective--and why the confederacy rhetoric lingers on--what the Union did was straight up illegal. The Emancipation Proclamation took private property without just compensation; then, they ratified the 14th Amendment by the barrel of a gun, ultimately sanctioning a 5th Amendment violation against taking private property without just compensation, but only in the case of freeing slaves. I will not offer a moral defense of slavery, as I oppose it politically and morally myself. I used to debate an Italian gal who was a translator, who also could not understand my position on equality--it seems leftists can only understand someone who doesn't agree with them as defending the ancien regime. She died of brain cancer. Anyway, she said she was trembling when I posted the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. That war was justified on moral grounds. "He (the Lord) hath loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on." "As He (Christ) died to make men holy, Let us die to make men free; While God is marching on." The Battle Hymn of the Republic scares the living shit out of atheists.


As well it should.


Agreed. That's also why Trump is a seminal figure, as someone like Bush probably wouldn't have used US Marshals or sedition laws among other things to bring the violent arm of the Democrats to heel.


It has been a moment long in coming, eventually someone was going to rally nationalist and populist forces to try to break up the system in Washington somewhat. Nor does it take a genius to see that the Democrats will get tired of losing and either break apart or attempt to create a ''Trumpism without Trump'' as a winning formula, a nationalist populist politics headed up by a ''man of the people'' charismatic enough to get the normal working class people vote.

I think so too, but I don't think the effort to delegitimize Trump will stop after election day.


It's useful to them, even if-or even ESPECIALLY IF-they pivot towards having their own version of a ''Trump''.


Agreed. However, like Nixon, they still didn't let him govern in his second term. Trump needs to take the House and hold the Senate too. Nancy Pelosi has never proven to be anything but horribly divisive.


Well, that is something that unfortunately for them still leaves the momentum and the decision making up to Trump, which is why I think that when he wins re-election in 2020, significant concessions may be made on their part in order to defeat the real crazies once and for all.

This is why I think the craziness is deliberate. It's why I couldn't take Anthony Kennedy seriously in Obergefell. It's why I can't accept Neil Gorsuch as a conservative either with his recent ruling on protection against sex discrimination applying to transgenders when such people were considered mentally ill at the time the law was written. Even the conservatives are radical liberals in my view. They've simply lost their minds.


I would say that part of it is fear, but I think the biggest part of it is money, of course. I think a tremendous number of the politicians in this country are subverted by Middle Eastern powers to do their bidding.
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